Customer Reviews

The Best Fake Book Ever: For Keyboard, Vocal, Guitar, and All "C" Instruments (4th Edition)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This one is by far the best value of all the fake books I checked at the store.

The more you go through this book each time, the more you find yet another delightful piece. It is much more fun and easier to play naturally and improvise rather than sight reading the more difficult piano pieces with two staffs and big chords.

Also, it written for C instruments which is important to remember for piano or guitar players. I mistakenly bought an Eb fake book and that was less natural to play and almost impossible to sing to, and I had to exchange it.

Most times the songs are in the original keys, which is good. Most jazz musicians I know use fake books. Important to note is that all the lyrics seem to be included, because some fake books do not include them all.

It shows guitar and piano chords but not symbols for either one, so if you are not used to playing extended jazzy chords you might find some songs tough going at first and may have to invest in a separate chord book.

The chord changes are beautiful and authentic, and true to the original. I was particularly impressed with the level of detail including note for note transcriptions of classic solos such as In My Life, so you can naturally reproduce the original sound. Some songs include harmony notes which is great for ensemble work.

As for those who say people under forty may not recognise many tunes, these are classics in the rock and standards category. If you really want 80s and 90s music I am sure there are other books for you, but open yourself up to these pieces, and you will enjoy.

This book includes releases by Beatles, George Harrison (his 4 best songs) Queen, James Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Various Motown, Soul, Jazz, Burt Bacharach, Samba, Dave Brubeck, Elton John, Neil Diamond, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Buddy Holly, Aretha Franklin, Carole King, Bread, Beach Boys etc. There is something here to please every taste.

Some of the songs include Bohemian Rhapsody, Hey Jude, Let it be, Michelle, This Masquerade, Theme from Mahogany, You've got a friend, Fire and Rain, It's too late, I say a little prayer, I fall to pieces, Heartbreak Hotel, My sweet Lord, Sweet Caroline, Angel by Sarah McLachlan, La Bamba, Fool on the Hill, Rockin Robin, Just the way you are, She's always a woman, Sorry seems to be the hardest word, Something, Here comes the sun, While my guitar gently weeps, What the world needs now, Yesterday. I hope you find this review helpful.

This book gets 5 stars... If you don't know what a fake book is, it is only going to have the melody line (for the piano part, it will only have the right hand, not the left).

The book with the RED cover is for C instruments (piano, guitar, harmonica, violin, flute, recorder, oboe, viola).
The book with the GREEN cover is B-Flat instruments (clarinet, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, trumpet, baritone T.C.).
The book with the BLUE cover is for E-Flat instruments (alto saxophone, baritone saxophone).

It is about a level 4-5 on a difficulty scale of 1-10 with 1 being the easiest and 10 being the hardest.

This fakebook is published in C, Bb, and Eb versions. The C version is now on the 3rd edition. But the publisher has not yet sold out of the 2nd editions for the Eb and Bb books, and so have not gotten around to releasing 3rd editions for the other keys. The editions are badly out of sync, in terms of the songs they contain, and sometimes even the key of the song. You can't use these split editions in an ensemble setting, so if you're getting this to play with friends who already have the older edition, avoid this one like the plague.

The low star rating, however, is for the song selection and generally hard-to-read (chords are too small, poor use of whitespace, and songs broken awkwardly across pages) typesetting that you find in most Hal Leonard fake books.

I just want to disagree with those reviewers who say that if you are over 40 this book is not for you. I am over 50, and I find the song selection of this book to be outstanding. I am sure my 21 year old son wouldn't identify with it, but I recognized almost all the song titles and found the variety to be outstanding!

There are some gems in here, but for the most part I would agree with the reviewer who said that for those over 40 years of age, time tested pieces are scarce. I would also add that although this book claims to be for guitar, the presence of chords ( names but in this case no mini chord charts )over the melody line ( by definition necessary for a fake book ) might be of minimal assistance in this case. Many, if not most, of the songs are in the more "guitar unfriendly" keys. Many ,if not most of the songs, are "incidental heavy" in their chord listings which no doubt preserves the original chord flavoring of the songs well but may require advanced finger gymnastics for the guitar player. Often some accomodation in keys and chords is made when "for guitar" is mentioned, or implied, in a title. So guitar players, despite the cover note that implies some degree of guitar friendliness or accomodation, think twice , or better yet go to a "brick and mortar" store where you can actually look at the keys and chords, before buying.

I purchased the Ultimate Fake Book a few months ago and found it to be a great joy with lots of familiar songs and easy-to-read notations. I expected The Best Fake Book Ever to be a continuation of the mixed genre of the first book. What I found, instead, was a book loaded with very unnoteworthy
music - three-fourths of which were unknown to this over-40
player....way too many Top-40 songlists that do not have the "wearability" of the tried and true standards which the Ultimate Fake Book had. I suppose, nevertheless, that the
songs I glean from this book pay for it considering the cost of sheet music this day and age. I would hate to think that Hal Leonard has already run out of songs to include in these
compilations. Perhaps he should "steal" some songs from his other fake books to publish as the "Best Fake Book Ever", 2nd edition. I would much rather see some classical, jazz, religious, Broadway, and standards mixed together than being bombarded with such inane titles as are found in this book!

This is truly "The Best Fake Book Ever", and then some. Just about all the really important tunes are covered in almost every genre. It's incredible to find this many sought after tunes in one place. Whoever put this one together for Hal Leonard deserves

a supreme commendation and a raise. It's the best fake book or song folio that I have seen or owned in 40 years in the music business, and I have been through a huge number of them. Hal Leonard, you're number 1. Amazon.com you are the number 1 place to make purchases.

There are some gems in here for certain, however I agree with the other reviewer who stated that if you're 40+ you won't find a wealth of time tested standards. Also for guitar players the difficulty I would place at intermediate to advanced due to the keys and (perhaps needless)chord complexities (no mini-charts with the chords which would have helped with all of the obscure ones). I have two other fake books from Hal Leaonard ( Christmas guitar and Folksongs )and I can't imagine that this group was gathered by the same team since I really like the other titles. I had several other Hal Leonard fake books on my "wish list" but now that I find the compilations inconsistent in quality I won't buy any more sight unseen.

Not bad, but I have some of the other series like "Ultimate", etc., and find more useful tunes in some of them... I was looking for more of the real "Oldies" but this seems heavier into 60's & 70's... I did find "Hard Hearted Hannah" which is a good, fun piece...

I've enjoyed playing through all of the songs in this book. I've been playing lead sheet style piano for many years now and the only thing that stopped me from giving this one five stars is that I have seen better. The Real Book series has added notation and usually will have an intro written as well. This fake book has a ton of great songs. For those who don't know what a fake book is let me tell you that it contains the "skeleton" of a song in it's basic form. You can play it according to the notes on the page and it will be recognizable but won't sound just like it's played on the radio. Nonetheless they're great fun and this one is easily one of the best out there.