Customer Reviews

Classic Rock Fake Book: Over 250 Great Songs of the Rock Era, Arranged for Piano, Vocal, Guitar, Electronic Keyboard an all 'C' Instruments

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fake Books have just the melody/lyric line (staff); piano players will only have their right hand busy; the left "fakes" it. And there's no tabs and songs are in their actual keys, so you need to read music. But if you do and either are good at theory or play a non-chording instrument, they're fantastic.

This book has a very impressive selection of songs, but "Classic Rock" doesn't describe it. More like "SuperHits of the 70s and 80s". There's some rock, some pop, some glam, a pretty wide variety of stuff people will likely request or that you might enjoy playing, but it's not all "rock" and certainly not "classic rock" - it's got songs from Heart, Bon Jovi and Jefferson Starship, fer cryin' out loud! Very playable stuff.

I enjoy this book a lot. I also enjoy the Disney Fake Book and the Ultimate Fake Book; there's not much overlap between them. The breadth of styles (again, it's not all classic rock) is a nice touch, and most of the songs were really big hits at one time. There are some omissions and excesses. No Dire Straits, but 22 Beatles songs. Six Elton John, but no Candle/Funeral for a Friend? No Led Zeppelin but FOUR Lennon/Ono (and one Lennon solo) songs? But on average it's a great collection.

The repertoire in this book is pretty good for classic rock fans. Of course, due to licensing restrictions it doesn't have EVERY great classic rock tune. There are some fatal flaws, however. The chords and lyrics are extremely small. Forget about using this book while playing live or jamming. The book would have been much better if it had been written in "real book" format instead of cramming all of the music and lyrics on one page. Also, songs that are tuned to E flat are sometimes notated as the actual chord shapes (without notating the tuning) and sometimes notated as the flatted chords. In other words, an open E chord would be notated as E flat. This is an awful thing to do to guitarists, especially on guitar based songs. I had to do a lot of crossing out and rewriting in chords. I also found a few of the chords to be incorrect when I went and learned them from CD. It's good as a reference for learning songs quickly, but you can't use it while playing.

This fake book has many hits that I would love to be able to play.
But this sheet music has such tiny printing that it makes the notes and key signatures dificult to read.
I would have given this book 3 more stars if it had have the songs and bigger print.

I'm a professional musician. I play a wide range of types of music, including alot of standards from the 40s and 50s. However, I was wanting to get more 'hits' from the 70s. After searching extensively online and in stores, I settled on this book and, so far, am happy that I did. I like that no song is more than two pages long. Most are only a page length. As a musician, this means I don't have to turn pages, especially when sight-reading a tune. The tablulature is clear and fairly easily readable though I'd prefer that most tunes would spread across two pages so that the print could be larger (especially as I grow older and now need reading glasses). I'm 50 years old and most of these tunes are very familiar to me. The arrangements are quite good (often including little riffs or fills that help define the tune). My copy has a plastic comb which makes it open and stay open easily. I recommend this book.

This is still a nice collection of classic rock tunes. However....if you're a Steely Dan fan like me, be aware that the Steely Dan tunes that appear in the table of contents on web site are NOT ACTUALLY INCLUDED IN THE BOOK. Big disappointment.

I bought this for my hubby. He has so many music but I thought this one had a lot of great songs and I was right. He's thrilled with the book, there are so many songs he doesn't have the music for and now I, Superwife, have done well again.

This is a great buy and wonderful book!

As a group, I like the Hal Leonard fakes. Tasteful chord changes, melody score, and lyrics. I would also say they exhibit good song selection, although there are always songs that never seem to make it into any of these collections, and others that seem to be in multiple books. I wish it were possible to buy some set of books and just get ALL the songs, so we could own a legal set, nicely bound, etc.

Another small but good point about this particular book is that the plastic comb is a little larger relative to the number of pages, so it should hold up over time, and not bend the pages when opening to a particular page.

I'm enjoying this book! Takes me back to my youth. Great selection of old favorites from the 60s, 70s & 80s.

This book has virtually all the songs I was looking for. I did read the earlier review that warned that the songs were in their original keys, not C. But having been classically trained (albeit eons ago), I figured I could handle it. I also bought some staff paper figuring I'd transpose any in keys I didn't want to struggle through. Well, unless you're really at ease and skilled playing in any key, I'd recommend going with a book in the key of C. I still give it 4 stars, however, because it's a great book in terms of content, and I bought it with my eyes open. No one to blame but myself!

I bought this item as a gift for my husband, and he is very happy with it...would definitely buy it again.