Fake Book & Real Book - Finder

A contents index for a range of 36 popular Fake & Real Books.

Find which fake/real books contains the song or tune you seek.

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Fake Book Finder What is a Fake Book?
Professional musicians are commonly expected to play a wide range of pieces, often ones with which they had no familiarity. To help with this endeavour musicians would circulate among themselves simplified hand written scores or "lead sheets" which usually contained just the melody line and chord progressions. These could allow someone to play a passable rendition of a song very quickly i.e. the minimal notation provided enough information to allow a good musical to "fake it". These collections of hand written and photo copied scores were the first fake books. The origins of these transcriptions were varied and not always of the best musical quality. Eventually, the "official" music publishing world got in on the act, and the first "Real Book" was published. It was a great success, and is now in it's 6th edition, and has been joined by similar offerings from many different publishers. The original fake books infringed copyrights, and mainly had an underground circulation, today, legal fake books can be found in most music stores.

What's in a Fake Book.

You will nearly always find a simple lead sheet (melody line plus chords), some also have lyrics, and very few have tablature or instrument specific instructions. Some of these books are available in different versions for different keys but most are in C; Bb and Eb versions for the brass are also common. Most use the treble clef but there are some bass clef alto versions.

Fake books are a very economical way of buying sheet music; it is not uncommon to find 500 or more songs in one book. Fake books can be fairly expensive so it is worth while to check with the supplier what version you are getting etc. before you buy. Some of the books indexed here are a few years old but hopefully you should still not have too much trouble getting most of them, or more likely, updated versions of them.

I would suggest you start your search at www.sheetmusicplus.com, who have a very good selection as well as good search facilities and include content indexes for their books. Ebay can also be a good source for secondhand fakebooks at very good prices, beware though, I have seen very poor quality photocopies offered for sale so check what you are getting.

How the index is organised & finding a song

The songs/tunes are in alphabetical order with 15 separate song titles on each page. Next to each title you will find a code e.g. "50S" this is the abbreviation for the book titled "The 50s", each book has it's own abbreviation. The song index pages are ordered on the first 3 characters in the song/tune title; if these are the same after 15 entries, a numeric suffix is added starting at 10. Some of the song titles have extra information such as the page number or author name added after the title. For indexing purposes, where a title began with "The" this has been removed. Click a letter on the nav-bar for the initial letter of the song title required.

Fake Books & Real Books indexed
50SThe 50s(HL.240240)
666FSBThe 666 fake song book
AJFBThe Amazing jazz fake book(IF0489)
BFBThe Blues Fake Book(HL.240082)
BFBEThe Best Fake Book Ever(HL.240083)
BRFBThe Big red fake book-giant hits of the 50's, 60's and 70's(F1069FBX)
BSBroadway Songs (HL.240157)
CFB2Classical Fake Book - 2nd Ed(HL.240044)
CFBThe Celtic Fake Book(HL.240153)
CRFBClassic Rock Fake Book - 2nd Ed(HL.240108)
CT200Columbia's top 200 of 1987-88 fake book for all keyboards 200 great songs(F2896FBX)
DFBThe Disney Fake Book(HL.240039)
EGFBThe Easy Gospel Fake Book(HL.240169)
EREFBEarly Rock'N'Roll Era Fake Book(HL.240167)
FFBThe Folksong Fake Book(HL.240151)
GRGFBThe Greatest Rock Guitar Fake Book(HL.240148
HFBThe Hymn Fake Book(HL.240145)
HLRJFBThe Hal Leonard Real Jazz Fake Book(HL.240097)
HLRJSFBThe Hal Leonard Real Jazz Standards Fake Book(HL.240173)
JCRRBJust Classic Rock Real Book(WB.FBM0005)
JFBThe Jewish Fake Book(HL.330350)
JJRBJust Jazz Real Book(WB.FBM0003BF)
JSRBJust Standards Real Book(FBM0002)
LRBThe Latin Real Book(HL.240138)
MACUThe most amazing colossal ultimate selection(HL00240024)
MDRBMiles Davis Real Book(HL.240137)
MFBThe Movie Fake Book(HL.240033)
MFFBThe most fantastic fakebook in the world - Warner Bros
MHMotown Hits(HL.240125)
NRBThe New Real Book(SR.NRB1C)
NRBV2The new real book. v2(Sher Music Co)
NRBV3The New real book V3(Sher Music Co)
PCFBThe Performer's Complete Fake Book(HL.240058)
PPFBThe Professional pianist's fake book(HL00290084)
PSPRFBProfessional singer's pop rock fake book Hal Leonard HL00240091
RBThe Real Book(HL.240224)
RJSFBReal Jazz Standards Fake Book(HL.240172)
RLBFBThe Real Little Best Fake Book Ever(HL.240017)
RLUBFB4The Real Little Ultimate Broadway Fake Book-4th Edition(HL.240111)
RLUFB3The Real Little Ultimate Fake Book-3rd Edition(HL.240027)
RLUJFBThe Real Little Ultimate Jazz Fake Book(HL.240018)
RWLPFBRichard Wolfe's legit professional fake book
SRBThe Standards Real Book(SR.SRBC)
UBFBThe Ultimate Broadway Fake Book 4th ed Hal Leonard. (HL.240046)
UCFBThe Ultimate Country Fake Book 4th Ed - Hal Leonard (HL.240049)
UFB3The Ultimate Fake Book 3rd - Hal Leonard HL.240024
UJFBThe Ultimate Jazz Fake Book - Hal Leonard (HL.240079)
WLFBWedding & Love Fake Book - Hal Leonard HL.240041
YFFBYour First Fake Book - Hal Leonard HL.240112


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