Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An indispensable resource!, July 15, 2003
Printed in 1983, the Fakebook remains the undisputed champion of music references for fiddlers, and it's aided a fair number of other non-fiddlers as well. Inside its broad covers you'll find nearly 500 tunes from the various fiddle traditions. Jigs, reels, hornpipes, rags and breakdowns, each clearly labeled for origins (Irish, bluegrass, French-Canadian, old-time, etc.) and including a short list of recordings where the tune can be heard. Just flip it open randomly for a taste of its contents, and imagine the sound of tunes like "Haste to the Wedding," "Leather Britches," "The Munster Buttermilk," "Drowsy Maggie," "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," "Hanged Man's Reel" and "Great Big Taters in Sandy Land." Eight pages of textbook materials -- music theory, history and culture, style and genre -- give a wonderfully brief overview of the things you'd like to know without loading the book down with endless information which, frankly, can get in the way of the tunes and make it too bulky for carrying. Better still, the book is held together by a sturdy plastic binding which allows you to plop it down on your music stand with ease. There's nothing so frustrating as a music book with tight bindings which make it impossible to play straight from the page.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Book for new Fiddlers who can read musical notation, January 13, 2000
We chose this book to be the standard for our Jam session in PRovidence because it has good versions of many popular old-timey, bluegrass and celtic tunes. Most of the session players around here play in several styles. This book has versions of 500 tunes taken from authentic sources, and most of the versions are pretty similar to what you will hear in the local sessions, so you can learn tunes from the book and be pretty certain that you will be able to play along when you hear the tune at the festival, in the bar or wherever. The author listed record or CD sources that you can get to listen to the tunes, so you can check the notation against the playing of well-known musicians such as Tommy Jarrell, Bob Wills, etc. The tunes are arranged alphabetically, so it is always easy to find what you want. This is a very useful and well-done book.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fakebook Tunes (Including Reels), July 11, 2004
Brody provides a good background on fiddling and fiddle tunes in this wonderful selection of music. The book appeals to fiddlers, and it also provides violinists interested in old-time tunes with sufficient resources to begin playing in styles different from classical music. The large selection of music provides great versions of mazurkas, waltzes, hoedowns, reels, jigs, hornpipes, airs, marches, and numerous other genres. Although the focus is on tunes commonly played by old-time fiddlers in the USA, the selection is international in scope, and the book includes tunes from Scotland, Ireland, America, Canada, and other countries. Each tune is annotated with a description of where the tune originated and a listing of various musicians who recorded the tune. These annotations will be especially helpful for musicians interested in the history of fiddling and for fans who wish to hear how the tunes sound prior to learning them from the printed page. The book should appeal to fiddlers of all skill levels; there are simple tunes for beginners as well as more numerous tunes that are a challenge for more advanced players.
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