The Real Book

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Book

by brudgers • 3 years ago

61 39 3 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

tshaddox4• 3 years ago

These books gave the musician enough basic information – melody, chord symbols, structure, lyrics – to "fake" his way thorough the tune, that is, to perform a credible version of tune that he might not be familiar, and for which he lacked a full score. Hence these collections became known as "fake books".

That's super interesting. I had never heard that explanation for the term. It's very much plausible, but I always thought they were called "fake books" because they were knowingly created and distributed without the legal rights to the songs. I've never really heard musicians convey the notion that the performances from fake books are "fake performances" or that you're "faking your way through it." I would have expected that jazz musicians who do have the rights to songs would still use a very similar form of lead sheet, especially given the improvisational nature of most jazz. I doubt many people would gig with full transcriptions—those tend to only be used for intense study of notable performances.

I thought the idea is just that the lead sheets themselves are counterfeit, as in "a fake Rolex."

dwringer5• 3 years ago

I always understood it in the context of "fake your way through", but I think it's versus the alternative of knowing the song - and thus, not requiring music. If you need to use a lead sheet, then the best you can do is fake already knowing it.

tshaddox4• 3 years ago

I guess I always just assumed that the term "fake book" was to distinguish between lead sheets and full scores (which you could buy from the legal publishers). If the word "fake" referred to needing the music written down at all, then it seems like the full scores from legal publishers would be just as "fake" in that sense. That would also explain why they called the legal one "The Real Book," which doesn't make sense if "fake" was supposed to refer to the reliance on written music.

kzrdude• 3 years ago

I thought that - the "real thing" is not to have proper score or full sheet music for a song. The "real thing" for a jazz standard is that you'd learn it from listening to it, and you'd play by ear and learn it all. That's how you keep it real. With the fake book you get the changes (chords) and melody written out and don't have to do the work of learning to play from the recording.

tunesmith2• 3 years ago

In truth, the vast majority of jazz musicians are semi-pro or hobbyist, meaning they show up to a $50 gig with some sort of stand and their book or iPad, and then read from the chart while they perform. Sometimes from a set list, other times from saying, "hmm, how about autumn leaves next?" "Okay" (shuffle shuffle tap) "all right, count us in"

cratermoon• 3 years ago

I have a collection of real/fakebooks. I studied guitar enough to learn about charts and you can indeed perform from just the chart, though you might not replicate the original performance. Of course, in jazz, improvisation is expected anyway, so as long as you have the changes, the key(s), the meter, and a simple melody line, a band can sound fine. Here for example is John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" https://imgur.com/g633n8b

allarm• 3 years ago

I think it’s the first time I see ma/mi as an indicator of major/minor chord. Why there’s so many standards for that?

ThrowawayTestr• 3 years ago

So a counterfeit would be a fake Real Book, a fake fake book.

thesausageking• 3 years ago

There's a great 99% Invisible on the Real Book:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-real-book/

Link has a lot of photos of a "real" Real Book.

dwringer5• 3 years ago

Thanks, I had this in a lower comment but it should really be at the top.

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26737142

pohl• 3 years ago

There's also a great Adam Neely video about it (his thesis is that TRB is a "jazz shibboleth").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD0e5e6wI_A

havefunbesafe• 3 years ago

Originally attended university for music composition. This thing was my bible. Heavy, cumbersome, completely in shambles after 2 years.

khazhoux• 3 years ago

I'm surprised by this. Was it a jazz program?

And... any other books you'd recommend for someone who wants to learn or improve their composition?

AlbertCory• 3 years ago

The legal Real Book is valuable in that the print quality is higher than a 10-times-xeroxed copy. Melody, lyrics, and chords -- that's all. No chord voicings, no solos.

There was a wikitunes.com site that had lead sheets for most standards, but I think that did get sued into oblivion.

The chords are just "suggestions," of course. A real player will see Bb11-5 and think "oh, that's a 7th chord. I'll add some notes if I feel like it."

tunesmith2• 3 years ago

Lately I've been just reconstructing my lead sheets in lilypond. It's very sparse text and quick work to get a score that looks just like a real book lead sheet, plus you can customize the chart however you want, and then check it in to git for revision history. There's a "lilyjazz" font floating around out there that makes it look handwritten.

microtherion2• 3 years ago

If I may plug my own project here, I wrote an online editor wrapping lilypond and some other software to generate lead sheets (Jazz fonts preinstalled):

https://woodshed.in

tomcam2• 3 years ago

Sweet! I can’t wait to try it

tomcam2• 3 years ago

Username truly checks out. Lilypond is amazing. Still in the learning curve but the results are senstational.

dako2117• 3 years ago

definitely one of the books of all time

bananaboy• 3 years ago

There’s a handy index of various real/fake books here https://www.seventhstring.com/fbindex.html

microtherion2• 3 years ago

There is a very interesting, tough unfortunately and ironically quite expensive, book on the history of fake books: https://www.amazon.com/Story-Fake-Books-Bootlegging-Musician...

There has been considerable litigation around this subject, and IP questions can get really complex. E.g. if you're using a Real Book version of "Donna Lee" you got through a P2P site:

* You're using sheet music pirated from the authors of the real book… * Who were transcribing the song without paying royalties to the rights holders (presumably Charlie Parker's estate)… * Who were re-using the harmony of "Indiana" (and I'm not sure whether the legality of that has been conclusively established).

colechristensen• 3 years ago

And this is an argument where there shouldn’t be intellectual property at all in these situations. Oral traditions and sharing music in a similar manner is the oldest tradition in human civilization, one of the things that makes us human.

Ok an exact recording of a pop song or rights to sell a song you didn’t write on a record… those might be considerable… but there needs to be a lot of room for music to be created and shared without whatever generational lock on ownership exists now.

tonystride2• 3 years ago

Fakebooks also improve classical playing. Learning how to read a lead sheet format forces a musician to internalize core music theory principles. A common classical music pitfall is relying too much on shallow rote learning, black dot = push down key without the substance of musical grammar & vocabulary.

I often see classical music as a lead sheet with the written notes being the composer’s suggested arrangement technique. It takes some time to see the collections of dots (notes) as higher level pattern like chord symbols but it all leads to the same place!

[edit] your playing becomes less fake by learning how to fake from a fakebook!

hammock2• 3 years ago

A lot of classical compositions were actually just lead sheets… and the modern publications have interpolated a full score

tonystride2• 3 years ago

I’ve heard that before, do you know of any examples? It makes sense since many of those composers were improvisers.

footlose_3815• 3 years ago

Anyone who knows a professional musician who gigs for a living knows of these. They are amazing. Just the basics of the song, enough to get the band going. Tons of standards.

colinmegill• 3 years ago

I've used these extensively as a musician, they're amazing

jaxn• 3 years ago

I will never forget buying my Real Book in the early 90s. I bought it from Cotton Music in Nashville.

They pulled it out from behind the counter in a paper bag. 14 year old me felt so cool, like I was joining a secret club.

tibbon• 3 years ago

Oddly enough, I went to Berklee in the early 2000's and I never thought much about the history or origination of these!

TomMasz• 3 years ago

The Real Book (and its ilk) were perfect for the way Jazz was played from the Bop era onwards. You'd play the basic melody so that listeners understood what the tune was and from then on you'd improvise, possibly reprising the melody to finish. The accompanists would use the chords as a starting point, substituting or extending them to match the soloist's direction so if they weren't exactly what the original songwriter intended it didn't matter all that much. No one was attempting to recreate the original recording.

The Real Book

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