Customer Reviews

The Real Book -Bass Clef; Sixth Edition

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you want to play jazz, you must have this book. It's just that simple. If you only have money for one book, this should be it. To take advantage of this book, you must be able to read bass clef and you must be able to understand chord notation.

If you go to any jazz open jam, you'll see people these real books. The horn players will have the Eb or Bb ones, piano guys will have the C one, singers will have the one with the lyrics on it. Once on the bandstand, you will hear someone saying "Let's play the tune XYZ on page 123". You will open this book and glance through the changes. With some study, you will know what to do, even if you never saw the tune before.

But to do this you'll need this book. To improvise on any tunes you will need to know the melody from this book. It is also great for practise reading.

You can recognize the guys that practise a lot when you see their real books are falling apart.

I saw some people with the xerox copy of this. Call me naive, but if you consider how many authors spent their lifetime writing these songs, it is well worth the thirty bucks or so that Amazon charges for it. Also, I get paid to play these tunes. Why shouldn't the authors or their estates get paid as well? At least this is how I feel.

This is a must have.

Great book of jazz charts; if you're a multi-instrumentalist more comfortable reading in treble clef then you might be better off getting that edition as the bass clef edition has the same charts transposed into bass clef without any additional bass lines written.

I recently purchased this edition of the classic Real Book and I have to say that I was definetly pleased. I play bass, and I grew tired of just reading chords so I decided to start experimenting with playing jazz melodies. This book contains so many songs and is very helpful when trying to learn a new song. The only setback that the book has is that a few select songs from the "illegal" fifth edition aren't included. But this book is by far better than the fifth edtion in so many ways especially that the musicians that wrote the songs aren't being stolen from.

I thought this would be better. It is very clumsy on my iPad. My PDF files work smoothly. They made such an issue of copyright info on each song. The music doesn't seem to have a "fit to page" so you have to adjust them each time. It isn't catalogued... I could go on but I'd rather spend my time converting my hard copy (which I bought for $40) to PDF. Please upgrade these books Mr. Leonard.

This is an excellent book, and you can't beat the Amazon price. I paid full cover price (50% more) at a local music shop. As far as content goes, what you see is what you get with this book.

Caveat: As someone new to jazz, I assumed the bass clef edition meant I would get the bass line (I play bass guitar). But instead it is the melody, shown in bass clef. Since the melody line is not usually played by bass guitar, it doesn't do much for me. Instead I rely on the chords, which are clearly shown, and improvise walking bass lines based on the chords.

Comment: As a beginner to jazz, I don't have a band that is willing to allow me to practice with them. So my recommendation to Hal Leonard is to offer a "deluxe" version of this book that includes a couple "play-along" CD's.

While most people think that musicians "play" music, they often forget that they also "work" music. It's great to see the composers and arrangers of classic tunes getting their fees. Sure, a handful are missing because the publisher couldn't secure the rights, but I'm willing to trade that for a legal version. In terms of usefulness (I own vols 1 and 2)they cover a lot of ground. A good effort.

This book is really beautiful - VERY nice printing, very clear.. a TON of tunes to choose from (462 to be exact!). I really love the format of this book. All chords are present for a given piece, all parts of the melodies, solo sections, codas.. And it's all super accurate.. It's just complete! I'm very happy with it! :) It's a fantastic learning tool and obviously a great book for jazz ensembles to get.

I ordered the 6th Edition Real book in Bass clef on amazon.com and have no complaints - it's exactly what I needed and ordered, and the description matched the product. I'm very happy with my purchase and have no negative reactions. Thanks!

I bought this book for our grandson for Christmas. He is very interested in music and is trying to learn many instruments by himself. This guitar book has been extremely useful to him. He enjoys playing his guitar and is also increasing his skills.

This is the standard by which all others are measured. If you are serious about jazz and you wish to present the standards start here. And remember to thank Swallow and Bley and any the others for rolling the stone and Hal Leonard for taking it from the under the counter.