konaboy Posted April 12, 2003 Share Posted April 12, 2003 Hi folks What's the difference between a real book and a fake book? And is there a best choice book for the jazz standards? What's your favourite standards book? thanks hang out with me at woody piano shack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superbobus Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 Well, they're both fake! The traditional real book has some mistakes in every tune. The story is that a well known bass player wrote down every tune with a mistake to avoid copy rights... There are some New Real Books which are pretty expensive. I have this 557 standards, swing to bop. Has been written down by some Yugoslavian cat. Pretty good, but not great. I wrote in some other chord progressions. Personnally I really don't like these books. I take 'em with me on sessions, or gigs with complete strangers to me. I prefer studying by the record and listening. http://www.bobwijnen.nl Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Zeger Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 I know the Sher publishing "New Real Book" is legit, but I'm a old school traditionalist so I still like the Real Book (the illegal one). Mine is about 25 years old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Horne Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 I like the 'original fake books'. These are the ones you could buy back in 1965 (and earlier) - 1980 or so. Book 1 had maybe two of three tunes per page, small print - almost all were copies of the original sheet music, I believe. I bought a set back in the 70's - eight books, seven filled with tunes and a master index. I still have them and have just about every tune written from 1910 or so to 1975 or so. I believe I paid $70 back then and they are still in excellent shape! I now use Sibelius software and have made my own fake books with my own chord changes (for the bass player). I have about 250 tunes in my books - two copies for C instruments and one each for Bb and Eb. It would be a great idea to have a separate forum here so we could share Sibelius or Finale created tunes. No guitarists were harmed during the making of this message. In general, harmonic complexity is inversely proportional to the ratio between chording and non-chording instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petros Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 BINGO, great idea: I also have many standards I have printed in Sibelius using large "Arial" font for chord symbols. "It would be a great idea to have a separate forum here so we could share Sibelius or Finale created tunes." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petros Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 I use the "Old Real Book" Vol. 5 (no copyright) and "The Standards Real Book" (Sher Music) which is all standards. Also, "The Real Easy Book" (Sher Music) has a lot of good "groove", blues and modal standards. I am disappointed with "The New Real Book" (Sher Music) Volumes: #1, #2 and #3, because they have too many never played fusion tunes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoundWrangler Posted April 14, 2003 Share Posted April 14, 2003 I like the "Ultimate Jazz Fakebook" (Hal Leonard), & also the Real Book (the fairly recent, "Just Standards" version looks good - I've been thinking about picking it up, espec. because it has a lot of those great Intros that people like Ella & Tony sing). Like many people, I think that if a tune originally has lyrics, these should be in the fakebook you use. (For one thing, knowing the lyrics makes it easier to remember all the parts of a song!)The photocopied Real Book from back in the day is worth obtaining, although as mentioned above, there are a few errors (& occasionally some arbitrary, fussy changes that don't really portray the "basic" song).The "New Real Book" is about 70% useful (which is pretty good as commercial fakebooks go); I agree with petros' comment, though. Who's going to call "River People" on a jazz jam session date?"The Musician's Fakebook" is about 60% useful, & has some common standards not found in the others. (Some good standards here are spoiled by somebody's "too clever" chord changes, though...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schmoron13 Posted April 14, 2003 Share Posted April 14, 2003 I tend to use a plethora of sources. The Stanford Jazz Workshop book was my first and still has some tunes that I can't find anywhere else. I made a 2 volume one back in college from a group of books that we used to do gigs, and it's essentially the old fake books, but with a lot more "commonly played" tunes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Immo Posted January 15, 2005 Share Posted January 15, 2005 A little bump to this thread. I was just looking for information on fake/real books (because of my purchase of Mark Levine's Jazz Theory and Jazz Piano books) and found this old tidbit. I also recommend the thread: Lead Sheets (Fake Books) - Advice Wanted It had some interesting stuff on reading charts. A buddy of mine that studied jazz in college also put in his two cents when he recommended I start with the Chuck Sher edition, look out for the original edition (which he said is essential for jam sessions) and stay away from Hal Leanord one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
resigned Posted January 16, 2005 Share Posted January 16, 2005 The Warner Brother's "Just Standards" is the most readable and useful fake book to come along in a long time. If I could only own one standards book, this would be it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Link Posted January 16, 2005 Share Posted January 16, 2005 I just spent the weekend printing out all the tunes I play (or should play) from the Real Books and compiling them in a ring binder. Everything in one place.There was a site that had three volumes of the original Real Books and something called the Jazz LTD book on line. Sadly, that site is gone. Fortunately, I had downloaded it all a while back. This other has a great number of standards, but is not nearly as comprehensive. http://guitar-primer.com/Charts/index2.html aka âmisterdregsâ Nord Electro 5D 73 Yamaha P105 Kurzweil PC3LE7 Motion Sound KP200S Schimmel 6-10LE QSC CP-12 Westone AM Pro 30 IEMs Rolls PM55P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
konaboy Posted January 16, 2005 Author Share Posted January 16, 2005 The original The Real Book has now been released and is totally legal. Dubbed "The Real Book: Sixth Edition" it is available from Amazon for only $16.50. I just ordered myself a copy as I feel it is a vital part of my musical education hang out with me at woody piano shack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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