Ten Etudes
These are ten original Etudes written in 19th Century Stroke Style. They are presented in graded difficulty, and each piece presents a technique common to the repertoire of that time. What I found lacking in the old banjo books was a cohesive progression of music for the beginner and amature. After some lengthy introductions, the books were a hodge podge of great music with no direction. If you play these ten pieces, you will have gathered the technique to handle 80% of the Early Banjo Repertoire.
The French titles were supplied by my friend Anthony Derycke, who personally took these for a test drive, and then supplied a name that distinguished each piece beyond "1 2 3" etc.
The techniques are a combination of concepts found in the Briggs' Book of 1855, the Rice Book of 1858, and the Converse Analytical Book of 1886. Refer to those, or get my Early Banjo Primer. They all lay very clean, with no twists to throw you off....only enough moves to keep simple things interesting.
The Ten Etudes
