![]() According to Barry Kernfeld's book "The Story of Fake Books," by the 1950s gangsters were duplicating the Tune-Dex information into bound fake books with prices between $10 and $25.įor many years the "standard" fake books were called simply "The Fake Books." All were composed of songs illegally printed, with no royalties being paid to the copyright owners. Goodwin also promoted the cards to professional musicians until 1963, when poor health forced his retirement. Printed on 3"x5" cards that were the same size as library catalog cards, Goodwin provided lyrics, melody and chord symbols as well as copyright information. But the sheer amount of the tunes more than compensated for this drawback, especially since skilled musicians could always improve the sound.Ī predecessor to fake books was created in May, 1942 when George Goodwin, a radio station director, released the first Tune-Dex cards. The origins of transcriptions were often murky and not always of the best musical quality. Despite the name, fake books are often unbound, consisting of a thick, loose stack of sheets. However, fake books can be an avenue to playing songs quickly a few chords and a one-note melody line can allow even an amateur to play a passable version of any song with relative ease. The fake book is a central part of the culture of playing music in public, particularly in jazz, where improvisation is particularly valued.įake books are not intended for novices: the reader must follow and interpret the scant notation, and generally needs to have thorough familiarity with chords and sheet music. Each song in a fake book contains the melody line, basic chords, and lyrics - the minimal information needed by a musician to make an impromptu arrangement of a song, or "fake it." ![]() ![]() (clip from Wikipedia) A fake book is a collection of musical lead sheets intended to help a performer quickly learn new songs. I also agree that sometimes the suggested chords were not correct, but the books were still an invaluable reference. ![]() A recent thread in this forum about tabs and musical notation also discussed "fake books." Some folks were not aware of what a fake book was/is.Īs a big user of fake books, I got curious and happened upon the following Wikipedia article about fake books, which is quite interesting (see below). ![]()
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