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I am new to the piano, please can someone tell me what a fake book is. Thank you for reading my post.
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A fake book is a collection of songs in the format of what's called a lead sheet. Lead sheets have just the melody written in the treble clef, with chord symbols written above. Musicians use them to get the basic framework of a song and create their own arrangement from it.
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Hi Clayts, and welcome. A "fake book" is a collection of sheet music that typically provides only the melody line of each song, plus chord symbols to indicate the accompaniment. It's up to you to devise an accompaniment based on those chord symbols (so in a way you're "faking it," as opposed to reading fully arranged sheet music, hence the name).
They tend to be used mostly by jazz players and cocktail pianists, although there are also rock fake books, folk fake books, etc. Google around or look on Amazon, you'll find lots of them.
"Wide awake, I can make my most fantastic dreams come true..." - Lorenz Hart
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Haha... you type faster than I do, Scott
"Wide awake, I can make my most fantastic dreams come true..." - Lorenz Hart
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They come in diffent keys, too, for different instruments, as I found out yesterday, ordering The Real Book from Amazon.ca (it's on sale right now, for anyone who's interested.) I had to google around a bit to make sure I was getting the right one - I think the one in 'C' is for piano. (Hope I'm right about that!)
Carol (Started playing July 2008)
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I had to google around a bit to make sure I was getting the right one - I think the one in 'C' is for piano. (Hope I'm right about that!) You are indeed right, although you also want to make sure you got treble clef C, unless you want to read all the melodies in bass clef. I happen to have a bass clef Real Book from my trombone-playing days. Of course, that was the "unofficial" version before they went legit, but I assume they still offer bass clef also.
"Wide awake, I can make my most fantastic dreams come true..." - Lorenz Hart
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Yes, I saw one that said "bass clef." But the one I ordered just said C; I'm assuming they're all treble unless they say "bass."
Carol (Started playing July 2008)
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Yes, I saw one that said "bass clef." But the one I ordered just said C; I'm assuming they're all treble unless they say "bass." I think that's a reasonable assumption.
"Wide awake, I can make my most fantastic dreams come true..." - Lorenz Hart
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a fake book is a book of unauthorized non official versions of songs with just a melody line on treble clef and no bass clef. just chords. hence the word fake because its not the actual score. its transcribed by a person other than the composer
music to me is kind of like putting together pieces of a puzzle i call it the paino because its where i put all my pain
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Actually, most of the fake books out today now have full rights and have been pretty carefully checked for accuracy. For jazz, I recommend The New Real Book over the Real Book. While the Real Book is the original, and what many still use at jam sessions, The New Real Book has more accurate renditions.
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I got into fake books just over a year ago when i started plunking around with one and had a fairly decent redition of 'Try To Remember' going in just a few minutes. I mostly just arpeggio the bass with a 1-3-5-3 finger pattern and then of course play the melody over that...so i need to work on my chords and inversions etc!
I'd say about the best fake book if you're interested in popular music would be the "The Ultimate Fake Book' although the 'Best fake Book Ever' is pretty good too. What i mean is that the first book just has more songs I'm interested in playing. I've gotten the classical fake book as well though and although it's probably almost a sacrilidge to play classical music with a contrived or simplified bassline there are some pieces I've learned this way either because i didn't have access to the original sheet music (Offenbach's 'Can Can' is great to play using the fake book version) or for 'training wheels' while first learning a piece (Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2)---another good piece out of the classical fake book is Beethoven's Ode to Joy.
Like i mentioned about the pop fake books such as the Ultimate fake Book there was really only a very small percentage of the songs that worked for me either palyability wise or just being interested in playing but with over 1000 songs you still get your money's worth i'd say. I copy the songs i want to play and have put them into a ring binder.
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Originally, fake books were sort of underground type things. You had to know someone who had access to them. The father of a friend of mine was a musician in the 50's and was able to get them and I bought a couple from him. They were pretty rudimentary with tiny print (I can't really read them anymore)and not very well proofread.
However, each book had about 1,000 songs in it (2 or 3 per page) and it was a good way to have access to tons of songs for a small cost.
They are now completely legal and commercial, easy to read and much more sophisticated. As you will see, everyone (including me) has there favorites. There are lots of them now days. Fake books are a lot of fun and I recommend learning to use them in addition to whatever you are doing now.
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:34 PM
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:23 PM
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