[HN Gopher] The Real Book (2021)
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The Real Book (2021)
Author : Tomte
Score : 145 points
Date : 2025-03-28 16:39 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (99percentinvisible.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (99percentinvisible.org)
| pvg wrote:
| Threads 4 and 2 years ago
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34536638
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26737142
| sintezcs wrote:
| 99% invisible is one of my most favourite podcasts, I recommend
| it every time when I talk about podcasts to someone
| sieste wrote:
| It's the _first_ podcast I ever heard of, when my friend first
| explained that word to me. Glad to see it 's still around.
| vunderba wrote:
| As an aside, fake books are a great way to get your feet wet
| learning how to extemporize while still having some guidance
| around the chord progression and melody.
|
| If you have an iPad, there's an app called iReal Pro with loads
| of lead sheets that add in some accompaniment (drums, guitar,
| etc.) so you can "play along" as well.
|
| https://www.irealpro.com
| bobbiechen wrote:
| iReal Pro is awesome. When playing music with new people
| (especially jazz), it feels like everyone has it, and you can
| quickly make sure you're playing the same charts.
|
| It's also available on Android, and it's a one-time payment,
| no-subscription app. Easily one of the most valuable music
| purchases I've made.
| commakozzi wrote:
| it's also great being able to change tempo, style, key, etc.
| iReal Pro is used by every pro musician i know around town
| neonscribe wrote:
| iReal Pro is a great resource, but what it provides are not
| lead sheets, they are just chord charts. Lead sheets have the
| melody of the song in standard notation, along with chord names
| and sometimes lyrics. iReal Pro's charts give chord names only.
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| I get very frustrated with cats on the stage who rely too
| much on the iReal Pro. If they don't know the melody, then
| they easily get lost when, for instance, an intro or other
| section is skipped (such as when the singer re-enters on the
| bridge after solos), and in general their comping tends to
| not be aware of how the melody fits in with the changes. At
| least when reading a leadsheet, readers know how the melody
| and harmony interact and can better play fills around the
| melody.
| analog31 wrote:
| Indeed it's worth mentioning, to a general audience, that
| iRealPro only displays the harmonies (chord changes) for
| tunes, and not melodies. Whereas, "fake books" include both
| melody and harmony.
|
| The reason is that copyright only covers melody and lyrics,
| not harmony. So the harmonies are essentially public
| domain.
| CephalopodMD wrote:
| iReal pro is the new real book
| shermantanktop wrote:
| For good and for bad. Its strengths are available to all and
| its gaps (melody!) and quirks (lack of variation) impact
| everyone's development.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| This seems to be another embodiment of Gabe Newell's "Piracy is
| almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem."
| etyp wrote:
| The Real Book was pretty fundamental helping me learn jazz. I
| think a lot of jazz people look down on it (or those who _need_
| it), but I didn 't really get deep enough to see that. There's a
| short video from Adam Neely that opened my eyes to that a bit.
|
| https://youtu.be/dD0e5e6wI_A?feature=shared
| xanderlewis wrote:
| Who looks down on the Real Book?
| brian_spiering wrote:
| The Real Book is an excellent resource for what it is.
| However since it is the primary book of jazz, it can have too
| much of an influence. The Real Book has a limited number of
| songs and entire subgenres of jazz are not represented. The
| structure of the songs is relatively narrow. Songs are rarely
| added.
| neonscribe wrote:
| There are now six volumes of Real Books from Hal Leonard,
| plus a several others organized around genres or artists,
| plus the Sher Music books. A few thousand songs. Not every
| player has every book, but they are all available. Most
| songs are available for purchase for a few dollars each as
| downloadable PDFs.
| ahipple wrote:
| Anybody who's worked with it for any length of time knows
| that the charts contained are good enough for jam session
| purposes but either contain inaccuracies when compared to the
| canonical versions of songs or may have been based on the
| "wrong" (according to some) canonical versions. Working this
| out means developing your ears and listening both to the
| original recordings and to the musicians you're playing with
| in a given situation. Many people end up in a place where
| they're just using their ears and memory to skip the book
| entirely, which in some situations is an essential skill.
|
| Most level-headed people I think regard the book as a useful
| tool, a step in the growth journey. As egos and insecurities
| enter the mix you'll occasionally find somebody who'll
| proclaim that the Real Book is purely a crutch and you should
| start and end with the ear-training bits or you're "doing it
| wrong".
| csmcg wrote:
| I feel like that commenter was a little harsh with that
| statement - I will say however that it has caught some flak
| as a source of truth. There are quite a few standards
| (principally, original jazz compositions by jazz musicians
| that have now become "standards", this probably isn't as much
| a problem for true "Great American Songbook" standards since
| those were always notated), that were transcribed incorrectly
| in original versions of real/fake books. To the point that
| many younger generation players are playing incorrect heads
| and/or changes to tunes since they learn it from the book
| rather than by ear. Not even that, but often they are just
| straight wrong, or dumbed down versions of the changes.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| Actually... this is true. Fair enough.
| analog31 wrote:
| I'm a jazz bassist, 61, and first saw a Real Book 43 years
| ago.
|
| There were, and are, always a few hard-liners who look down
| on reading tunes from a book, on the bandstand. They're not
| necessarily the oldest, or best players, or have the best
| reasons. Whatever. Most of the gigs that I've played, fake
| books were accepted. There are similar debates in most
| musical styles.
|
| Roughly 20 years ago, I decided to stop bringing fake books
| to gigs. I quickly discovered that I didn't need them. For
| one thing, the "local repertoire" wasn't vast. For another,
| it exercised my ability to pick up tunes by ear. I see more
| of what's around me, and interact more with the band and
| audience, because the music stand isn't there. Today, I have
| a bunch of stuff on an Android tablet that I keep in my bag
| just in case, but rarely bring it out. The tablet also
| contains stuff for bands that use written arrangements, such
| as a 19-piece jazz ensemble.
|
| I personally think the inaccuracies are immaterial. Most
| players will never encounter a situation where the ur-text is
| important. The players I've known who mostly learned by ear
| don't play 100% accurate changes.
|
| I'm not a full time pro, but am often called as a sub, so
| I've observed many levels of bands. I've formed the opinion
| that the fake books do in fact detract from performances. I
| hate "dead air" between tunes while the players flip through
| their books (or thumb through their phones) to choose what
| tune to play next. It's a little bit cringe when a good
| player who should know a beginner tune, reads it. Flipping
| through the books may be just a habit. Plus, dependence on
| the books limits the repertoire in weird ways. Real Book has
| practically become its own genre. Remember, the
| "contemporary" tunes in the RB are 50+ years old.
|
| The problem is that gigs and jam sessions are no longer
| frequent enough to afford players a chance of learning tunes
| by ear. The books aren't going away. Bandleaders can figure
| out how to deliver a better performance. Send out a set list
| in advance. Let people listen to the tunes that they're
| unfamiliar with. If needed, they can transcribe them. I do
| that a lot when asked for a popular tune that doesn't have
| available sheet music, such as most country-western.
| neonscribe wrote:
| If the band is flipping through their books, paper or
| electronic, to choose what tune to play next, that isn't a
| performance worthy of the term. It's a jam session. Which
| is fine, but hopefully nobody is paying to listen to it.
| analog31 wrote:
| I agree, but sometimes you don't know all of the details
| of a gig before agreeing to play, especially since I'm
| not the top call bassist in my locale. Then you put on
| the best show you can under the circumstances.
| pjdesno wrote:
| Someone I know who went to Berklee in the early 90s said that it
| was a required text for certain jazz classes, and you had to buy
| it from a bootlegger.
| evereverever wrote:
| I went to school in Minnesota and we had to go to a certain
| music store and ask a specific employee for the book. I believe
| it was $50. It was basically required to play jazz.
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| I was at Berklee in the late 80s and that's a pretty accurate
| statement both for the requirement and procurement.
|
| Your friend was there close enough to the time that I was there
| that it was probably the same thing. There was "a guy" that
| hung out around the school... I'd usually see him somewhere
| around the intersection of Mass Ave and Boylston... And he was
| known as the guy to talk to if you wanted a real book (and
| probably other stuff as well). Every once in a while you'd see
| him just running off down the street like he was being chased
| or something (never saw a pursuer) though it was said every
| once in a while they'd try and busy him.
|
| I didn't actually get my copy from him ... My high school band
| teacher was a pretty accomplished bebop guy that burned out
| playing in the house bands in Vegas and "retired" to
| teaching.... So he hooked those students of his up that had an
| interest in small group playing or gigging. So had my copy
| before going to Berklee.
| dhosek wrote:
| I remember a friend managed to get a copy of a real book in the
| 90s and was _so_ excited about it. When I sat down to play some
| tunes out of it, I was unfamiliar with the notation where Cmin7
| was written C-7 and CMaj7 was C^. I figured out the latter, but
| thought the former was Cdim7 which led to some weird
| harmonizations before I figured it out.
| neonscribe wrote:
| The lack of agreement on how to spell chord symbols is a
| genuine problem. Brandt and Roemer's 1976 Standardized Chord
| Symbol Notation provides a reasonable standard, which was
| adopted by Sher Music in their "New Real" line of books, but
| it's not quite the same as the style chosen by the original
| Real Book authors that was mostly kept in the Hal Leonard
| editions. iRealPro uses a slightly different style. Chord
| chart readers have to be prepared for a variety of styles,
| unfortunately.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| A lot of opinionated variations on chord spellings, too,
| with tritone subs sometimes included or not, 7b9s
| represented different ways, etc.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| One of my favorite jokes:
|
| Guy decides to go deep into Africa up the Congo River. After
| getting to the last easily accessible entry into the river, they
| board the smallish boat to begin the arduous trek deep into
| darkest Africa.
|
| A day or three into the journey they start hearing distant drums,
| then as they continued after some days it got slowly louder. The
| guy started getting spooked and asks the Captain, "What's up with
| those drums?"
|
| The Captain replies, "Don't worry. Everything's perfectly fine so
| long as they continue."
|
| After more days of journeying, suddenly, one night, the drums
| just stop cold.
|
| Fearfully, the guy inquires, "WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!"
|
| The Captain replies, "Bass solo."
| h-c-c wrote:
| A married couple hasn't spoken to each other in 10 years. Their
| daughter seeks out the best marriage counselor she can find and
| gets her parents to agree to go to a session.
|
| After their first visit the daughter follows up with the
| therapist and asks if he could get them to talk to each other.
| "Not this time, but we have another appointment next week. I'll
| take another crack at it."
|
| The parents show up to their next appointment. The therapist is
| trying everything he can think of to get them to speak to each
| other. Because he has a reputation to uphold he's getting a
| little worried. He tells the daughter, "We've got another
| appointment next week and I've got one last thing I can try."
|
| When the married couple steps into the therapist's office,
| therapist doesn't say a word but pulls out an upright bass out
| of his closet and starts playing a solo. They immediately start
| talking.
| glimshe wrote:
| You two! Bass solos can be great!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it0PN8RrEZI
| MrMcCall wrote:
| Thanks, I've never heard of them before. Excellent.
|
| For whatever reason, we love this session by this
| incredible jazz band:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pYHCGYJbw0
|
| "Enjoy." --Daniel Tosh
| h-c-c wrote:
| I am a bass player sir.
|
| My joke has more to do with the fact that bass players tend
| to feel unappreciated when the audience talks during their
| solo. Bass solos are always quieter so, there's some sort
| of bias there I'm sure.
|
| Recently at a jazz club a bass player friend of mine who
| graduated from the same music school as me found ourselves
| talking through the bass solo from the act on stage. "Oh
| man, we're doing it now." Lol
| jdietrich wrote:
| This drummer is sick of everyone ribbing him about not being a
| real musician, so he goes to the music shop to buy a proper
| instrument.
|
| He says to the owner "I'd like to see some guitars, please".
|
| The owner says "you must be a drummer".
|
| The drummer says "How did you know that?".
|
| The owner says "This is a fish shop".
|
| The drummer wanders down the street and finally finds the music
| shop. He's in there for hours, overwhelmed by the choice,
| weighing up all the different options.
|
| After much thought, he musters up all of his courage and says
| to the owner "I'd like the big red trumpet and that accordion
| over there".
|
| The owner says "Well, you can have the fire extinguisher, but I
| can't sell you the radiator".
| titaphraz wrote:
| It's insane to think that so many owe so much to an contraband
| book.
|
| There's a very good podcast about (music) copyright and how it's
| used and abused. The podcast is mainly about Men At Work's "Down
| Under" and the crazy copyright case that hit them:
| https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-xqda4-23ebff8b
| seabre wrote:
| This brings up a lot of memories. I got lost on the way to jazz
| school and studied CS instead. Still went to school on a partial
| music scholarship. Wound-up playing so much anyway that it killed
| my grades. Worked out in the end, lol.
|
| If you have a copy of the "illegal" Real Book you'll notice that
| there are _a lot_ of Steve Swallow tunes in there :-)
|
| There are definitely people that look down on using the Real
| Books/iReal as a crutch. IMHO it's not a huge deal. But, it is
| widely encouraged to learn as many commonly called tunes as you
| can though. You can find lists of those in various places:
| https://www.shermusic.com/1883217040.php and
| https://www.shermusic.com/1883217482.php for example. The reason
| for that honestly is that you _will_ find yourself in a scenario
| where something called isn 't in your book. Popular chord changes
| get re-used a lot, so the more material you know can help you
| "figure out" the unknown tune quickly. Called tune just rhythm
| changes? Blues changes? So What/Impressions changes? etc.
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