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> 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

> 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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-real-book/ [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26737142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26737142
    - bombcar 4y ago
      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.
      - analog31 4y ago
        People were certainly using the illegal books until fairly recently, and I still see a lot of them around. They're easy to spot, as the manuscript style is fairly unique. And the mistakes. ;-) Myself, I gave up on fake books more than 20 years ago, because I thought that they weren't helping my playing any more. They are a crutch. Do you really need to read Blue Bossa? According to legend, the publishers decided to stop going after the illegal fake books, preferring to get their royalties from performance licenses. It's hard to sue a bunch of penniless musicians into oblivion.
kzrdude 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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"
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      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.
cratermoon 4y ago
I have a collection of real/fakebooks. I studied guitar enough to learn about charts and you can indeed perform from just the chart, though you might not replicate the original performance. Of course, in jazz, improvisation is expected anyway, so as long as you have the changes, the key(s), the meter, and a simple melody line, a band can sound fine. Here for example is John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" https://imgur.com/g633n8b https://imgur.com/g633n8b
- allarm 4y ago
  I think it’s the first time I see ma/mi as an indicator of major/minor chord. Why there’s so many standards for that?
  - jmkr 4y ago
    I recently found an open music theory book (I think I found it from the r/musictheory subreddit). I haven't read it yet but it talks about this. https://viva.pressbooks.pub/openmusictheory/front-matter/introduction/ https://viva.pressbooks.pub/openmusictheory/front-matter/int... Under the Accessibility section: > We use some less-standard terminology to help readers who use screen readers; in particular, we never use a capital/lowercase letter M to distinguish major and minor qualities, and instead use the abbreviations “ma” and “mi.” Hopefully this nomenclature will become more common over time.

dwringer 4y ago

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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-real-book/ [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26737142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26737142
  - bombcar 4y ago
    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.
    - analog31 4y ago
      People were certainly using the illegal books until fairly recently, and I still see a lot of them around. They're easy to spot, as the manuscript style is fairly unique. And the mistakes. ;-) Myself, I gave up on fake books more than 20 years ago, because I thought that they weren't helping my playing any more. They are a crutch. Do you really need to read Blue Bossa? According to legend, the publishers decided to stop going after the illegal fake books, preferring to get their royalties from performance licenses. It's hard to sue a bunch of penniless musicians into oblivion.

kzrdude 4y ago

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 4y ago
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"
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tshaddox 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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.

cratermoon 4y ago

I have a collection of real/fakebooks. I studied guitar enough to learn about charts and you can indeed perform from just the chart, though you might not replicate the original performance. Of course, in jazz, improvisation is expected anyway, so as long as you have the changes, the key(s), the meter, and a simple melody line, a band can sound fine. Here for example is John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" https://imgur.com/g633n8b https://imgur.com/g633n8b

allarm 4y ago
I think it’s the first time I see ma/mi as an indicator of major/minor chord. Why there’s so many standards for that?
- jmkr 4y ago
  I recently found an open music theory book (I think I found it from the r/musictheory subreddit). I haven't read it yet but it talks about this. https://viva.pressbooks.pub/openmusictheory/front-matter/introduction/ https://viva.pressbooks.pub/openmusictheory/front-matter/int... Under the Accessibility section: > We use some less-standard terminology to help readers who use screen readers; in particular, we never use a capital/lowercase letter M to distinguish major and minor qualities, and instead use the abbreviations “ma” and “mi.” Hopefully this nomenclature will become more common over time.