Pete Seeger Banjo Book Movie

Subject: RE: Help: Pete Seeger Banjo Book Movie
From: BluesMojo
Date: 19 Oct 01 - 03:25 PM

I met Ralph Stanley. I've mentioned that before but I was so elated by it that I try to mention it every chance I get. I was at bean blossom a few weeks ago and he was signing copies of CDs, I asked him if he could give me any tips on learning the banjo and he told me to just bring it to bean blossom and watch and learn. I also spoke with JD Crowe, which was cool. Has anyone else noticed that bluegrass musicians are much nicer than, say, your average rock musician? Ralph Stanley didn't seem to understand why I'd ask him for tips instead of just any old banjo player, incredibly humble..

Subject: RE: Help: Pete Seeger Banjo Book Movie
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 19 Oct 01 - 08:40 AM

My Uncle who is a fine five string player had the same experience with the Ralph Stanley video. He says Ralph does things like "okay, here you just do this" and plays something. As my Uncle says, if I knew how to that I wouldn't have bought the video.

Subject: RE: Help: Pete Seeger Banjo Book Movie
From: BluesMojo
Date: 19 Oct 01 - 08:37 AM

I've seen the video and it didn't help me a bit. Pete is a performer more than an instructor, and he spends most of the video singing songs for the camera and then making little comments about them. It's entertaining musically but unless you know what you're doing already and think you can just pick it up from watching him, it wont' help you a great deal.

Subject: Pete Seeger Banjo Book Movie
From: DonMeixner
Date: 18 Oct 01 - 11:44 PM

I seem to recall that Pete mentioned a 16MM movie of his How to Play The 5- String Banjo book. Anyone seen it or know of a video of this book. I'd like to see it and see if I can finally learn to play that basic up picking style of his. I can only frail, I can't do drop thumbs . I'm wondering if that Up Picking style could give me a little variation from frailing and flat picking the old Ode.

Don Meixner