The Real BookVolume ISixth Edition: C Edition by Hal Leonard Corporation

The Real BookVolume ISixth Edition: C Edition Reviews

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  From Cryme to Reason

  It has a handwritten style; not only font-wise, but also with some shortcuts. I'm fine with the song titles being written on staves, but they don't notate the key signature subsequently. Sure: it's how I'd write it by hand, but that would be bargain-bin quality. It makes it hard to read pitches, especially after accidentals.
  
  You really don't know what you have until you're without it; I heavily rely on each subsequent notation of the key signature to reset the accidentals and stuff, and to be reminder.
  
  Too many of the songs have their harmony just rotate around the Circle of Fifths, and a lot of the song titles are also unoriginal. The songs at least have some interesting inversions at times, but they still write stuff as sixes every time they get the chance. "C6" should be notated as "Am7/C".
  
  They also notated rhythms stupidly, with dotted quarter notes existing in simple meter. Those notes should be tied with an eighth note showing where each beat is, otherwise it's unnecessarily hard to sight read.
  
  And I haven't seen the book give credit to transcribers or anything, which is weird because the "Fake Book" style is indicative of anything but urtext quality. Back in the dark ages of YouTube: video creators would be deleted for not giving credit to the right people. It's disgusting for Hal Leonard to try acting like they're some underdog for doing the hard work of bootlegging songs, but they're not punished for it the same way small creators have been.
  
  And Hal Leonard is so disconnected from their customers when they say "unauthorized, copying, arranging, recording, internet posting, public performance, or other distribution of the printed music in this publication is an infringement of copyright." Don't they understand the entire point of Jazz and the Real Book is to take a song and make it different/new? The people selling me the book specifically said it's the go-to book for buskers. People perform from this book publicly all the time, with no consequences; Hal Leonard is all bark and no bite, and people don't deserve to be punished for using this book. Hal Leonard prints threats against us in their own books.
  
  I'd agree covers of the songs should at least be unique enough to be considered fair use, but that's a different conversation.
  
  It's worth buying the book, but I would give it at least one more star if any company other than Hal Leonard published it.
• 
  Michael Andersen

  I took a class with the Jazz Band at the University of Utah. The book emphasizes chords that have the eleventh or ninth sharp on the scale, for instance. It takes about 4, 5, or 6 musicians to decipher this text and the tunes are old like, "The Chattanooga choo choo" song. I got the book for $30.00 and the teacher, Allen Weight, really graded critically.
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  Jeffery Jay

  If you play jazz, you must have this book. The charts are more accurate than earlier illegal versions. Sadly, there are lots of great tunes in version 5 that don't appear in version 6, but on the bright side, there are tunes in #6 that were new to me and I love them. I also recommend the Chuck Sher "New Real Book" series. I have 1,2,and 3. His charts are a bit more difficult to read because they don't have the 'four measures to a line' like the original Real Books, but the chords are more hip and the melodies are spot on. Sixth Edition: Highly recommended.
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  Maureen Sautter

  The bible of jazz standards.