Mel Bay Publications in Missouri has released a new ebook that should be of interest to serious banjo players and students.
Classical Masterpieces for Banjo offers excerpts of eight major classical works, and transcribes them for banjo in tablature. It’s not meant to prepare you to perform these pieces, so much as to give banjo players who don’t read standard notation access to this music. These pieces are quite challenging, and would serve as excellent technique building exercises. Plus they will be fun to play.
The book was created by Italian banjoist, Claudio Parravicini, and contains parts of these compositions over 56 pages:
- Prelude No. 2 in C minor by J. S. Bach
- Flight of the Bumblebee by Rimsky Korsakov
- Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven
- Invention No. 4 in D minor by J. S. Bach
- Carnival of Venice by Paganini
- Invention No. 6 by J. S. Bach
- Toccata for Piano or Harpsichord by Paradisi
- Perpetual Motion by Paganini
Parravicini is a dedicated banjo player of the highest order, as you can see in this video he made for Nechville of him performing Béla Fleck’s Natural Bridge Suite.
Classical Masterpieces for Banjo is offered for download purchase for $9.99 from the Mel Bay web site.
