BanjoCraft is a brief look at banjo making in the small shop. This book is intended to to be accessible to banjo people and wood workers of all skill levels. BanjoCraft contains 50+ full color photos and 46 pages of detailed banjo making knowledge. BanjoCraft guides the reader through the process of making an open back banjo, from raw wood to a finished instrument. It focuses on building techniques and considerations that are specific to banjo making and does not delve deeply into sub-topics such as fretwork, inlay, or how to use a protractor. In composing this book it was our goal to provide general considerations, instructions, and techniques while encouraging the reader to get to work in the shop and cultivate experience of their own.

Banjo music possesses a unique power to evoke a bucolic, simpler past. The artisans who build banjos for old-time music stand at an unusual crossroads ”asked to meet the modern musician's needs while retaining the nostalgic qualities so fundamental to the banjo's sound and mystique. Richard Jones-Bamman ventures into workshops and old-time music communities to explore how banjo builders practice their art. His interviews and long-time personal immersion in the musical culture shed light on long-overlooked aspects of banjo making. What is the banjo builder's role in the creation of a specific musical community? What techniques go into the styles of instruments they create? Jones-Bamman explores these questions and many others while sharing the ways an inescapable sense of the past undergirds the performance and enjoyment of old-time music. Along the way he reveals how antimodernism remains integral to the music's appeal and its making.

The setup, maintenance, and restoration of the five-string banjo. An indispensable guide for the amateur as well as the professional repair person. Every procedure is clearly explained and illustrated with detailed photographs and diagrams.

A complete survey of traditional banjo styles complete with tunings, playing tips, and the author's deft drawings. Progresses from easy tunes for the beginner to more difficult pieces. The styles include up-picking or Pete Seeger's basic strum; two-finger picking; three-finger picking; and what had variously been called frailing, clawhammer, knocking, rapping, overhand, fram-style, flayin' hand, andother Appalachian names, here called down-picking. Audio download available online

(Reference). While Gibson produced literally thousands of banjos prior to WWII, only a handful were made in the now most desirable configuration: the Original Flathead Five-String Mastertone. Since Earl Scruggs helped to make them the most sought-after banjos in the world over 60 years ago, these instruments have amassed a cult-like following. These particular banjos featured a completely innovative design when the Gibson Company introduced them around 1930. They have since become the benchmark in design, sound quality, and just sheer power among banjo players. They have therefore also become the inspiration for nearly every successful 5-string banjo that has been manufactured for the past five decades. Like Martin Dreadnaught and Fender Stratocaster guitars, the Gibson Mastertone Banjo has achieved an exalted status: It is appreciated far beyond its utilitarian purpose as a musical instrument, and considered a truly original American art form. The Mastertone design and style are instantly recognizable by musicians and music lovers around the world, even if imitated by other manufacturers. Of the 130 or so Original Flathead Five-String Mastertones known to exist, 19 of the absolute best are featured here. The Scruggs, Reno, Jenkins, Crowe, Osborne, Huber and Mills banjos are shown in all of their glory, with details of their known histories and provenances, as well as never-before-seen photos, bills of sale, factory shipping ledgers, and other ephemera relating to these rare and highly desirable instruments.