3 ms·

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 2y ago
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.
- mvidal01 2y ago
  I remember when my brother (a teenager at the time) bought his book he had to give his music teachers name and the employee called for a reference.
sbuttgereit 2y ago
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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    A lot of opinionated variations on chord spellings, too, with tritone subs sometimes included or not, 7b9s represented different ways, etc.

evereverever 2y ago

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.

mvidal01 2y ago
I remember when my brother (a teenager at the time) bought his book he had to give his music teachers name and the employee called for a reference.

sbuttgereit 2y ago

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 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  A lot of opinionated variations on chord spellings, too, with tritone subs sometimes included or not, 7b9s represented different ways, etc.