What is a “fake” book?

Post by Tim
I just have to ask. I’ve heard the fake book discussed for years and never understood whaat it was. I never hear much about “real” book, but only the “fake”
Can someone please enlighten me?
Thanks!

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_sheet>
Bg

Tim

2019-07-27 14:46:24 UTC

***@hotmail.com
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<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_sheet>
Bg

.....

Interesting. If never heard the term “lead sheet” either.

Thanks!

o***@hotmail.com

2019-07-26 14:31:09 UTC

Or:

Tony DeCaprio

2019-07-26 14:59:42 UTC

Was originally books of showtimes and bop heads that were mere lead sheet compilations. Musicians would have to make up their own parts ( each instrument, as an example) , which was dubbed as “ faking”...fake knowing what was initially intended by the composers , for example. Some of us are old enough to recall these books as ‘ fake books.’ The dubbing “ RealBook “ came about in the decade of the 60’s and out of Berklee. You would have to ask The early Lawrence Berk bunch why they used that term, but I would guess as a way to say the chord changes were more accurately written in comparison to the original fake books , which often sported ukulele voicings and lax in ii7 changes preceding V7 type changes , for example, besides alterations and embellishments.

Tim

2019-07-26 17:11:09 UTC

Thanks for the replies and vid. So these books were just to show the basis of the tune so you could build a structure on it. Foundational I’d say. Made to get you out of a bind Incase you didn’t really know the tune.

Now I understand the “fake book” term. It helped you “fake it”. Lol!

Lord Valve

2019-07-26 23:10:48 UTC

Post by Tony DeCaprio
Was originally books of showtimes and bop heads that were mere lead sheet compilations. Musicians would have to make up their own parts ( each instrument, as an example) , which was dubbed as “ faking”...fake knowing what was initially intended by the composers , for example. Some of us are old enough to recall these books as ‘ fake books.’ The dubbing “ RealBook “ came about in the decade of the 60’s and out of Berklee. You would have to ask The early Lawrence Berk bunch why they used that term, but I would guess as a way to say the chord changes were more accurately written in comparison to the original fake books , which often sported ukulele voicings and lax in ii7 changes preceding V7 type changes , for example, besides alterations and embellishments.

We should also point out that such books
(at least in the early days) were ILLEGAL,
because no royalties were paid to the composers
of the tunes in them. Because of this, they
often sold for some pretty steep money...but
the total was still quite a bit less than the
amount one would have to pay for the equivalent
sheet music.

LV

Tony DeCaprio

2019-07-27 15:20:46 UTC

That’s also true. All told, life did not begin with the “RealBook”, which can also be a double-edged sword for anyone relying solely upon a book to learn standards. The tunes are all too often lifted from a player’s single performance. Perhaps akin to learning martial arts from a book.

Joey Goldstein

2019-07-27 15:50:29 UTC

Up until the early 70s jazz and pop musicians used collections of lead
sheets informally put together by hand by various musicians so that they
could do gigs involving tunes they didn't really know.
A lead sheet helps to enable a musician with a certain set of skills to
improvise or "fake" a part on a tune that he or she has never seen.

After the invention of the photocopier these collections of lead sheets
were collected into books that were passed around between musicians.
These books were, AND STILL ARE, called "fake books".

In the 70s, at Berklee, 2 students, Stu and Mitch, used to raid Gary
Burton's file cabinet for lead sheets he'd collected, and then they
started lifting tunes to make their own lead sheets, and then they put
it out as a book to sell to other Berklee students.
It became so popular for a number of reasons but it eventually garnered
the nick-name the "Real Book" and eventually Stu and Mitch put that on
the cover.

Since then nearly every other fake book put on the market has used the
word "Real" in the title.

Tony DeCaprio

2019-07-27 16:52:17 UTC

Good point. We’re the books not called “
Spaces” before adapting “ Real.?”

Joey Goldstein

2019-07-28 19:42:27 UTC

Post by Tony DeCaprio
Good point. We’re the books not called “
Spaces” before adapting “ Real.?”

I think the Spaces fake books predated the Real Book by a few years.
The spaces stuff came out in reaction to Coryell's album of the same
name with McLaughlin on it, no?

TRB came out i8n my 3rd year at Berklee which was '75 I think.

I sold the first few copies here in Toronto myself.
I made 20 photocpies at the U of T library and went out to the new
Humber College so sell them
Met most of the folks that I still play with in T.O. at the time.

van

2019-08-03 04:33:43 UTC

Post by Tony DeCaprio
Good point. We’re the books not called “
Spaces” before adapting “ Real.?”

I think the Spaces fake books predated the Real Book by a few years.
The spaces stuff came out in reaction to Coryell's album of the same
name with McLaughlin on it, no?
TRB came out i8n my 3rd year at Berklee which was '75 I think.
I sold the first few copies here in Toronto myself.
I made 20 photocpies at the U of T library and went out to the new
Humber College so sell them
Met most of the folks that I still play with in T.O. at the time.

Did you ever run into a bass player named Frank Wagner (AKA "Butch") at Berklee?
He claimed he had the first Real Book, which was a bunch of loose sheets with usually two tunes to a page. I still have some copies of them.

Gerry

2019-08-03 05:13:32 UTC

Post by Tony DeCaprio
Good point. We’re the books not called “
Spaces” before adapting “ Real.?”

I think the Spaces fake books predated the Real Book by a few years.
The spaces stuff came out in reaction to Coryell's album of the same>
name with McLaughlin on it, no?
TRB came out i8n my 3rd year at Berklee which was '75 I think.
I sold the first few copies here in Toronto myself.
I made 20 photocpies at the U of T library and went out to the new>
Humber College so sell them
Met most of the folks that I still play with in T.O. at the time.

Did you ever run into a bass player named Frank Wagner (AKA "Butch") at Berklee?
He claimed he had the first Real Book, which was a bunch of loose
sheets with usually two tunes to a page. I still have some copies of
them.

It's not pieces of Spaces?

van

2019-08-03 06:20:07 UTC

Post by Gerry

Post by Tony DeCaprio
Good point. We’re the books not called “
Spaces” before adapting “ Real.?”

Did you ever run into a bass player named Frank Wagner (AKA "Butch") at Berklee?
He claimed he had the first Real Book, which was a bunch of loose
sheets with usually two tunes to a page. I still have some copies of
them.

It's not pieces of Spaces?

I don't know. Butch called it the first Real Book, and it consisted of standards, and some nice pop tunes that were around back then, like "Up, Up and Away".
We were all excited about it at the time, because we thought we had a piece of jazz history in our hands.

Joey Goldstein

2019-08-03 21:41:13 UTC

Post by Tony DeCaprio
Good point. We’re the books not called “
Spaces” before adapting “ Real.?”

I think the Spaces fake books predated the Real Book by a few years.
The spaces stuff came out in reaction to Coryell's album of the same
name with McLaughlin on it, no?
TRB came out i8n my 3rd year at Berklee which was '75 I think.
I sold the first few copies here in Toronto myself.
I made 20 photocpies at the U of T library and went out to the new
Humber College so sell them
Met most of the folks that I still play with in T.O. at the time.

Nope.

Anon Anon

2019-08-03 21:44:06 UTC

Post by Tony DeCaprio
Good point. We’re the books not called “
Spaces” before adapting “ Real.?”

I think the Spaces fake books predated the Real Book by a few years.
The spaces stuff came out in reaction to Coryell's album of the same
name with McLaughlin on it, no?
TRB came out i8n my 3rd year at Berklee which was '75 I think.
I sold the first few copies here in Toronto myself.
I made 20 photocpies at the U of T library and went out to the new
Humber College so sell them
Met most of the folks that I still play with in T.O. at the time.

Did you ever run into a bass player named Frank Wagner (AKA "Butch") at Berklee?
He claimed he had the first Real Book, which was a bunch of loose
sheets with usually two tunes to a page. I still have some copies of
them.

Nope.

There were several loose lead sheets floating around in the same
handwritten script as TRB before it was put out there as TRB.
Many of Metheny's and Swallows tunes, etc.
BSL, Falling Grace, Exercise #6, Eiderdown, etc.

Fenris

2019-07-27 19:20:35 UTC

Up until the early 70s jazz and pop musicians used collections of lead
sheets informally put together by hand by various musicians so that they
could do gigs involving tunes they didn't really know.
A lead sheet helps to enable a musician with a certain set of skills to
improvise or "fake" a part on a tune that he or she has never seen.
After the invention of the photocopier these collections of lead sheets
were collected into books that were passed around between musicians.
These books were, AND STILL ARE, called "fake books".
In the 70s, at Berklee, 2 students, Stu and Mitch, used to raid Gary
Burton's file cabinet for lead sheets he'd collected, and then they
started lifting tunes to make their own lead sheets, and then they put
it out as a book to sell to other Berklee students.
It became so popular for a number of reasons but it eventually garnered
the nick-name the "Real Book" and eventually Stu and Mitch put that on
the cover.
Since then nearly every other fake book put on the market has used the
word "Real" in the title.

Well explained

Tim

2019-08-02 18:36:51 UTC

Fenris
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