I keep reading these terms but don't know what they are. I suspect they show the chords by root instead of staff notation? Or what is it?

Thanks

"fake music": a term to describe any noise coming from a piano that Mark plays - according to his wife.

Or, music with a single melody line and chords noted above the staff (just like those cute little guitar chord fingerings).

A lead sheet is the melody line from a tune with the chords annotated at the proper places in the tune. ie G7, C13, Dmin7, etc. A fakebook is merely a collection of lead sheets.

I forgot to add that the reason they call them fakebooks is that the artist is "faking" a full arangement from the lead sheet. You'll see other publications called "real books" - they're exactly the same as the fakebooks.

There isn't really anything fake about fakebooks though. When a composer comes up with a pop tune, they usually come up with a lead sheet type of arrangement first. They'll play the melody and mark the chords that they like for the different notes. It's only later that they may write a full arrangement for a band, orchestra, or solo instrument. So really, with a fakebook, you're getting back to the roots of the tune.

You can find fakebooks and real books in any music store and most book stores. Some of them have over a thousand pieces in them!

Now that I know, I can say one thing for sure: I can read lead sheets much better than real music.

I understand now why established musicians have some sort of guilt feelings when they play off a lead sheet: others might think they can't read full music. That's me, though

Thanks all for the information.

Personally, I am much more impressed with someone doing a great arrangement from a lead sheet moreso than someone reading an arrangement note for note. This demonstrates that the musician knows something about harmony and most of the music is actually his.

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this is a great way to learn your way around chord voicings.

spent the first few weeks of playing piano working out of beatles fake books that I've had laying around.

my teacher gives one tune each week to take off charts, and work a chord/melody arrangement out for it.

it defintely gives you some leeway in how you voice chords, and experiement.

good stuff.

Gah!!! I've been playing fake music all my life!!! Why didnt anyone tell me?

Seriously, I don't think anybody has to be embarrased (sp?)or be guilty about playing from lead sheets or fakebooks, in fact, in the professional world of jazz and pop playing if you can't play from a fakebook and do your own arrangements, you aren't considered a very good musician. As they say, you won't get the gig.

When I listen to a piano player, I listen to how good they sound. I rarely admire them because of how well they read the sheet music, although thats a good skill to have to