The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo
by Patrick Costello

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Book Reviews of The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo

Book Review: More than a book just for learning to pick a banjo
Summary: 5 Stars

This book is unique, though, because anyone who picks it up can enjoy Costello's stories of his life of musical adventures. I left the book on the kitchen table when it arrived, and my wife, who's not a musician, started reading his anecdotes and laughing, and pointed me to those I had not yet seen. She loves the stories, because Costello is a great story teller. The stories are not just diversions, though. He tells them to teach things through examples from experience. The opening anecdote's a great example. It ends with the lines, "First thing you've got to do is slow down.... It's the rhythm, kid.... That's got to stay the same no matter what happens.... OK now, son, get lost. Go on and work on that. Don't come back until you can do like we showed you," which was advice to Costello at the beginning of his banjo life. At the end of the book, Costello tells us, too, to, "Get lost" and go play.

You could go a long way on the advice in these quotes from a story that's great for a beginner, whether the story is real, anecdotal or apocryphal. Costello provides what you need to start Old Time clawhammer banjo, and if we all follow the advice (slow it down, keep the rhythm, and "get lost" and PLAY until we can do what we've just learned the way it's described), there'll be a lot more music and a lot less book collecting among the beginners, sooner rather than later.

Costello teaches chords, but he's teaching us to pick the banjo within the structure of those chords and within the relationships among those chords, not just to strum. The purist may say that's not real old time banjo, but it is, just as much as the great modal mountain fiddle music that defies chording, because the old time banjo is an instrument for entertaining all folks who love a good song as much as it is part of the modal mountain tradition. Costello points out right away that, "...if all you ever manage to learn is the basic strum and three chords, you can play thousands, yes thousands, of songs." Now, that's encouragement for someone who wants to play AND sing with others of like mind. What's more, he's put a lot of songs, with the words no less, in this book.

Now, there are other approaches to teaching old time banjo picking epitomized by the advice from one guy I've heard, who says more or less that you probably should stick to one tune for months before you try another. If you've got the guts after hearing this advice to play anywhere but in your bedroom until you come out like a mayfly, play your tune, & disappear, you're tougher than I am.

Costello's book encourages you to make music, because that's the point. Getting it right just means slowing down, keeping the rhythm and singing along, and that's the sort of approach that will free the beginner from solitary confinement. There's plenty here to teach clawhammer technique, with the subtleties of double thumbing, drop thumbing, pulling off, hammering on, sliding and, well, that's about it for most books except to provide more & more difficult ways to use those pieces of the technique. Costello teaches the technique, but in the background there's both his mastery of theory and his great philosophy of sharing music with others.

I've learned something from each old time banjo book on my music stand. This one is on top. It's inspiring and fun, and it has something for your friends and family to enjoy while you're lost, playing the music and singing the songs.

Summary of The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo

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