Fake Books The Real Deal | Big Boys Toys

Christmas will soon be around the corner, and for the guy that has “everything” or at least his own guitar, you might want to consider getting him a FakeBook. FakeBooks have been around since the 1940’s. It is a simplified version of sheet music that was originally intended for professionals to meet the demand of playing requests in small club type live venues, without havving to memorize the whole song. They get the basic chords, melodies, and transitions and they could 'Fake' the rest. Improvise would be a kinder term but it's the musicians themselves that coined the phrase.

The typical fakebook gives you guitar chords, piano chords and simplified solo lines and or transitions so you can improvise, some may include bass lines as well. The FakeBook/ Guitar Chord Chart pictured to the right is for the Ray Charles and Willie Nelson Song “Seven Spanish Angels” and is available for free online at Heartwoodguitar.com. The bigger commercial fakebook books include lyrics, chords, and melodies for guitars, pianos, and singers. It should be noted that these are not for the raw beginner, but once the basic chords are learned on guitar or the keyboard fundies are down pat, they can rapidly increase the intermediate players repertoire spurring them on to proficiency and increasing their enjoyment of the instrument.

The "Sittin on the Dock of the Bay" is a good example of guitar fake book notation covering the range of the rhythm/chord, and verse transitions , including the bridges. These are covered with Guitar Tabs, Chord diagrams and normal notation as well.

Hal Leonard Corp publishes several different genres of FakeBooks that cover a wide range of popular music. So whether it is Pop, Rock, Country, Christmas or Folk music that is the interest of your huny there is one available just for him.