[HN Gopher] The Real Book
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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.
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