A fake book is a collection of musical lead sheets intended to help a performer quickly learn new songs. Each song in a fake book contains the melody line, basic chords, and lyrics - the minimal information needed by a musician to make an impromptu arrangement of a song, or "fake it." A lead sheet is form of music notation the describes the melody, lyrics and harmony of a popular song. ... Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Typical fingering for a second inversion C major chord on a guitar. ... Look up lyrics in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The fake book is a central part of the culture of playing music in public, particularly in jazz, where improvisation is particularly valued. For other uses, see Jazz (disambiguation). ... Improvisation is the practice of acting and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of ones immediate environment. ...

Fake books are not intended for novices: the reader must follow and interpret the scant notation, and is expected to have thorough familiarity with chords and sheet music. However, fake books can be an avenue to playing songs quickly; a few chords and a one-note melody line can allow even an amateur to play a passable version of any song with relative ease.

Despite the name, fake books are often unbound, consisting of a thick, loose stack of sheets.

History

The origins of transcriptions were often murky and not always of the best musical quality. But the sheer amount of the tunes more than compensated for this drawback, especially since skilled musicians could always improve the sound.

A predecessor to fake books was created in May, 1942 when George Goodwin, a radio station director, released the first Tune-Dex cards. Printed on 3"x5" cards that were the same size as library catalog cards, Goodwin provided lyrics, melody and chord symbols as well as copyright information.^[1] Goodwin also promoted the cards to professional musicians until 1963, when poor health forced his retirement. According to Barry Kernfeld's book, "The Story of Fake Books"^[2], by the 1950's gangsters were duplicating the Tune-Dex information into bound fake books with prices between $10 and $25.

For many years the "standard" fake books were called simply "The Fake Books." All were composed of songs illegally printed, with no royalties being paid to the copyright owners. In 1964, the FBI's Cleveland, OH, office observed that "practically every professional musician in the country owns at least one of these fake music books as they constitute probably the single most useful document available.".^[1]

The first two volumes, Fake Book Volume 1 and Fake Book Volume 2, issued in the late 1940s–1950s, together comprised about 2,000 songs dating from the turn of the 20th century through the late 1950s. In the 1950s the Modern Jazz Fake Book, Volumes 1 and 2 was issued, and Fake Book Volume 3, containing about 500 songs, came out in 1961.

The music in Fake Books 1, 2, and 3 was photocopied or reset with a musical typewriter from the melody lines of the original sheet music. Usually chord symbols, titles, composer names, and lyrics were typewritten, but for a number of songs these were all photocopied along with the melody line.

The chord changes in these books were notoriously inaccurate. Most of them were based on the guitar and ukelele chords commonly found in earlier sheet music, which often did not include the roots of the harmony. For example, a chord labeled "Fdim" ("F diminished") for guitar or ukelele might functionally be a G7b9 ("G seven, flat nine") chord, which has a G as the root plus all the notes of an Fdim7 chord. Thus, successfully using the Fake Books required the expertise of jazz musicians and others trained in functional harmony in order to reinterpret the chord symbols.

The three Fake Books were well indexed, alphabetically as well as by musical genre and Broadway show. Interestingly, although the tunes in the Fake Books were compiled illegally, the creators printed copyright information under every song — perhaps to give the false impression that the Fake Books were legal.

The Modern Jazz Fake Book was divided into two sections, each indexed separately as Volume One and Volume Two. The music was transcribed by hand from recordings, and each transcription included performer name, record label, and catalog number. Unlike today's fake and "real" books that have "jazz' in their titles, the Modern Jazz Fake Book included no standards, but only original tunes written and recorded by jazz musicians.

All these books have been long out of print.

During the school year of 1974-75, the Berklee College of Music in Boston published The Real Book, which claimed to fix all problems of poor design, although it was riddled with errors which were gradually corrected by generations of players. Steve Swallow, who was teaching at Berklee at that time said the students who edited the book intended "to make a book that contained a hipper repertoire, more contemporary repertoire."^[1] It was extremely popular and in its turn spawned a number of "fake Real Books". The Real Book can refer to any of a number of popular jazz fake books, but is generally used to refer to Volume 1 of a semi-underground series transcribed and collated by students at Berklee College of Music during the 1970s. ...

Fake books originally infringed copyrights, and their circulation was primarily underground. The 6th edition of the Real Book is published legally. Not to be confused with copywriting. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into underground economy. ...

See also

• Jazz standards
• Real Book
• Rise Up Singing