[HN Gopher] The Real Book ___________________________________________________________________ The Real Book Author : brudgers Score : 45 points Date : 2023-01-26 18:47 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org) (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org) | microtherion wrote: | 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). | thesausageking wrote: | 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. | dwringer wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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 | AlbertCory wrote: | 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." | tunesmith wrote: | 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. | microtherion wrote: | 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 | tshaddox wrote: | > 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." | dwringer wrote: | 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. | tshaddox wrote: | 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. | dwringer wrote: | That's a fair point, but "The Real Book" was always | referred to as a 'fake book' by every Jazz musician I ever | met, though. I honestly don't think licensing has anything | to do with the term. | | For decades a legal version was available called "The New | Real Book", but "The Real Book" was the name of the | original*, unauthorized fakebook - preferred by every jazz | musician I met - until the latest edition when the rights | were finally secured by a major publishing house with | edition 6. | | *I used the term 'original', but to my knowledge fakebooks | were around since the 20's or before. "The Real Book" was | already a play on that back in the 70's. And typically none | of them were authorized. | | EDIT: Sorry for haphazardly continuing to update this but I | was trying to dig up more. Here's the link I was trying to | find[0] With previous discussion here on HN[1]. It states, | 'They called them "fake books" because they helped | musicians fake their way through unfamiliar songs.' | However, it's certainly not the only possible explanation. | | [0] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-real-book/ | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26737142 | bombcar wrote: | Maybe they started out as illegal copies, but I've seen | numerous that are obviously easy to sue into oblivion if | they were unlicensed. | | I think "fake it till you make it" is the proper | understanding; similar to guitar tabs. | | Wikipedia has "It became so popular that the books was | eventually "legitimized" by publisher Hal Leonard, and | re-released in a series of editions and transpositions | for various instruments" so maybe it was both, kinda. | tshaddox wrote: | > That's a fair point, but "The Real Book" was always | referred to as a 'fake book' by every Jazz musician I | ever met, though. | | Yeah, that's because the _definition_ of "fake book" is | "lead sheet," regardless of licensing. My theory is about | the _etymology_ of the term, not the definition. | dwringer wrote: | I wouldn't be surprised if the connotation of being | unlicensed had something to do with it, but growing up | (and studying jazz with many accomplished musicians) I | always heard the etymology that it has always referred to | faking one's way through - which is the supported | etymology in the linked article, as well. Personally I | believe that words typically have multiple concurrent | etymologies which all have some validity, and that's | probably the case here IMHO, so, again, I think you make | a fair point. | | Since we're getting into technicalities, a "lead sheet" | is not exactly synonymous with "fake book". A fakebook | encapsulates a particular sort of standard repertoire, it | is a curated assemblage of standards as much as it is | sheet music. As such it's almost impossible for a | fakebook of the most general sort to be fully licensed. | (And when Hal Leonard came out with the legal Edition 6, | many musicians rebelled and stuck to the pirated older | editions because they covered the genres more | comprehensively). | kzrdude wrote: | 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. | tunesmith wrote: | 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" | tshaddox wrote: | Don't professional gigging jazz players also use lead | sheets, assuming the gigs consist of a large repertoire of | standards (as opposed to a fixed set list like you might | see on a concert tour)? | dwringer wrote: | They usually (or often) have them, but often the most | common tunes in the first few Real Book volumes (and | other standards) have been memorized so they never | actually pull them out. When I used to sit in with some | guys from the local university, they'd usually play | everything from memory and only pull out the fakebook for | newbies/guys like me who didn't know the songs they were | playing [so we could 'fake' our way through]. | | A lot of those guys would pride themselves on having | played along with the recordings dozens or hundreds of | times (and often with computer transposition) so they | could play the tunes with their eyes shut, in any key and | at any tempo. | [deleted] | tonystride wrote: | 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! | bananaboy wrote: | There's a handy index of various real/fake books here | https://www.seventhstring.com/fbindex.html | havefunbesafe wrote: | Originally attended university for music composition. This thing | was my bible. Heavy, cumbersome, completely in shambles after 2 | years. | dako2117 wrote: | definitely one of the books of all time | ThrowawayTestr wrote: | So a counterfeit would be a fake Real Book, a fake fake book. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-01-27 23:01 UTC)