Steve - S T O P !
That "real little" book lives up(down) to it's name. The type is sooooooo tiny. Get a full size book unless you have x-ray vision.

Dave,

I'm fast approaching 50 and small type is getting harder to read. Thanks for saving me from wasting my money.

Dave, I'm glad to see you back on the arranger forum. Family is what its all about, and anything that strikes home hurts most. I hope all is going well for you and yours. My very best wishes and prayers are with you during the Holiday season.

Your friend,
Steve

Actually, one of the distinguishing features between fake books is the size of print used. Some will put a song on a single page, relatively big print, easy to read. Others put two (or three) songs on a page. Obviously, print is much smaller. Some will split a song between pages. If it starts on the left and finishes on the right page, this may be bearable, but I hate to have to TURN pages to finish the song. The "Little" book series put this information into a smaller page size (rather than the standard 9x12) and, as a result, use very tiny print. My eyes couldn't cope with that.

Amazon has started offering a very useful service. Go to www.Amazon.com, search in Books for "Fake Book". You will notice in the list of hits some flagged with a "Look Inside" message. Amazon has provide a peek at the contents of various books with this feature. You can actually see what kind of print is used to show the songs and how they look. A nifty feature if you can't be browsing in a book store! You may also find the customer "reviews" helpful in making a selection.

Personally, I liked the Ultimate Fake Book (1200 songs, #1 in popularity) for the songs included, but I didn't like the hefty size. I thought it was so big and heavy it would wind up breaking the stand on my keyboard so I wound up dividing it into smaller components. I also liked the Ultimate Jazz book and the Wedding and Love Songs fake book. But what you like will be highly dependent on the kind of music you want to play.

If reading on the job is important to you - then take the big fake books to Staples and have them REbind it into smaller, lighter packages. I personally, HATE to read on stage (for alot of reasons, but mostly because it takes my eyes off the crowd), but for the occasional chart - I have a three ring binder (1" thick)with clear plastic "slip in" pages. That way I can just bring the specific charts I need and the book is very light and organized.
I don't recomend reading (it's a crutch) if you can help it. Try to memorize chord patterns - NOT notes. It's much easier to remember. How many songs use:
C Am F G7 ??? Thousands !!!!
It's not as hard as you may think to remember LOTS & LOTS of different songs because they all share similar patterns or sequences. Break them up into sections and you'll see what I mean.

Hey Uncle Dave, You got 'all' the changes to 'Lush Life' memorized? Seriously, I agree that you shouldn't rely on fakebooks (as a crutch) on the job, afterall, it's like having guests and not paying attention to 'them'. Even so, I still think fakebooks are an excellent resource for learning new songs and having on hand just in case someone important walks in and requests an obsure tune. Afterall, no musician can possibly know EVERY tune in one of those huge fakebooks, can they?

Ok, one of my pet peeve hobbies is collecting almost every fakebook available. As UD points out, most tunes tend to follow a basic chord progression of : I-VI - IV - V7 or I-VI -II -V7 so you can then easily pick the melody out (by ear) as you're playing if you just memorize the chord progression. The fakebooks I find most useful are the ones which also include professional sounding 'chord substitutions'. This in combination with the type of chord 'voicings' played, is really the KEY INGREDIENT to sounding professional vs. amatuer. As you start begin discoverying 'alternate' chord subsitutions, you will soon start making up your own as well. Here are a few fakebooks (which include chord substitions) which I highly recommend. The Christmas fakebook at the end of the list might be a good one to check out now because it provides some great professional sounding chord substitutions to the typical standard Christmas fare.

The Best Chord Changes for the Best Known Songs:
http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.js...e+&location=PVG

The Best Chord Changes for the Best Known Standards Ever: http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.js...e+&location=PVG

The Best Chord Chord Changes for the Most Popular Songs: http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.js...e+&location=PVG

The Best Chord Changes For the Most Requested Standards: http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.js...e+&location=PVG

The Best Chord Changes For the World's Greatest Standards: http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.js...e+&location=PVG

Real Chord Changes & Substitutions (A-F): http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.js...e+&location=PVG

Real Chord Changes & Substitutions (G-K): http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.js...e+&location=PVG

Real Chord Changes & Substitutions (L-Q): http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.js...e+&location=PVG

Real Chord Changes & Substitutions (R-Z): http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.js...e+&location=PVG

Real Chord Changes & Substitutions Christmas Favorites: http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.js...e+&location=PVG


[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 12-13-2001).]

"Lush Life" is more like an exercise than a song. As pretty as it sounds, I think it was written as an attempt at complexity.
In my 32 years of working music rooms, that one was NEVER requested....... although we've offered it for free sometimes.

Jazz tunes are in the minority in the pop world, and as much as I love all types of music -- learning more jazz won't make me anymore money, or make me more popular. It's one of life's little pleasures that I take as a gift whenever I can. In fact last night I took a gig with a jazz trio as a drummer! What a ball I had!

I used my Roland digital set, and everyone loved it. I even surprised myself that I was able to keep up with the piano player -- what a freakin' monster he was. The whole band used my gear, because they wanted to check out the stuff. I had my Fender Jazz Deluxe bass, my Roland FP3 piano, and my SPD20 pad kit. It was sooooo cool. We were very straight ahead, and swung almost every Christmas tune there is!
Now I'm back to the real world, and no one will need me or my drums for a long time, so I'll set them back up in my studio for my next midnight session. It's a great way to blow off steam after a gig. I play for about 15 minutes and I feel all relaxed..... and NO one wakes up -- cuz I'm on headphones! It's a beautiful thing.

As far as jazz tunes go - I like to make jazzy arrangements of popular stuff so the crowd knows the tunes, but can "swing" with the feel. I believe it's better to give them the tunes they want, but keep the arrangements fresh, and exciting. That keeps ME interested. Most of my crowd wouldn't appreciate REAL jazz anyway. That select few rarely comes into the places I work. Some of the standards that have made it to my venues include
"On Green Dolphin Street", "Breezin",
and ANY Duke Ellington tune. If I played Miles or Trane ... I'd loose them.

Sorry to drift off topic - fake books are great for study, and to get you out of a jam now & then, but I wouldn't let people see me read too often - then they think it's "K" time. (yuk)

Thanks to all for the info!

Steve

Dear Santa Claus
As you know, I've already told you my wish
list for the X-Mas, but if you look into those
links, you probably know what I forgot to
mention.
Bring my regards to "Rudolf the Red Nose",
he'll might find a goodie outside our house
this year too.
GJ

Scottee my friend you've did it again, why don't you edit your post and cut the address in half and put each one on two lines.
It's hurting my neck looking around the side of the monitor to see where they went!!
Your Teacher,
Nobby

------------------

Nobby: What size monitor are you using? For some reason (on my computer) with 17 inch monitor, I am not having to scroll from left to right in order to view the entire text. BTW, I did attempt to enter the URL address' on 'two' separate lines as you had suggested in the past (by just hitting the enter key once only and doing nothing else), but it ends up breaking the link altogether. Sorry about that!