Reddit Reddit reviews The New Real Book

We found 11 Reddit comments about The New Real Book. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

Arts & Photography
Books
Songbooks
Music
Jazz Songbooks
The New Real Book
Used Book in Good Condition
Check price on Amazon

11 Reddit comments about The New Real Book:

u/ProgHog231 · 5 pointsr/Bass

> I can read tablature but not music notation (I'm assuming this is the first step!)

Standard notation is important - and definitely learn it. But as important, or maybe more so, is being able to understand chords and progressions.

Here's a really simple lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilh4uMAdss8 to illustrate how to get started. Scott's Bass Lessons has a lot more content, too. Christian McBride also has an online fundamentals course: https://www.openstudionetwork.com/project/fjb-overview/

To apply even a basic knowledge, I'd recommend getting one or more real books. The app, iRealPro is a digital version of this approach and has some nice features like being able to change key and tempo. At its heart, jazz is a performance and improvisational art, and these resources let you build up those playing skills.

u/Jongtr · 5 pointsr/musictheory

[This] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-Book-Leonard-Corporation-2004-09-01/dp/B01FGIQ49G/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1549386796&sr=1-4) is the classic original - updated to remove (most of) the mistakes (mostly trivial in the first place), and now licensed so no longer illegal. This was the bible of all amateur jazz musicians from the late 1970s to 90s (at least).

The [New Real Book] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Real-Book-1/dp/0961470143/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1549386952&sr=1-1) is better-looking, with a slightly different selection of tunes. Originally published as a legal version of the old Real Book (which had been an underground publication).

There are now many volumes, so the best thing is to consult the list of tunes in each one and count how many you recognise. ;-)

u/MMA_bastard · 4 pointsr/jazzguitar

Alright, my last two comments on this sub were downvoted, so I'm going to give it one more shot.

One of the mainstays of jazz since the early days has been common repertoire, the songs that have come to be known as "standards." If you resurrected Louis Armstrong from the grave you could take him to a session anywhere in the world and he'd find common tunes to play with the jazz musicians there. I'm going to guess that a big part of what you're not getting about jazz is you have little or no familiarity with these songs, so learning them, even just as a listener, is going to be one of your main jobs right now. I posted a video the other day called Aimee's Top 25 Jazz Standards To Know that is as good a list as any to start with. I used Nat King Cole's vocal recordings to introduce my daughter to some of these when she was five, because Nat sticks with the melody but still has a jazz delivery. Frank Sinatra is another good source, because he recorded just about every damn standard that is a vocal tune and did it with great jazz musicians. Obviously there are a zillion great instrumental versions of these tunes as well. A good place to look for the songs' histories and seminal recordings is jazzstandards.com.

One resource that you really should purchase to help you get up to speed on standards is a good, legit fakebook. The most common one is called The Real Book, and I advise getting a hard copy. I actually prefer the Chuck Sher New Real Book and its sequels, but either it or the Hal Leonard RB will get you started. If I'm not mistaken all of the tunes on Aimee's list (25 standards) are in the HLRB.

Next you should select a song from the fakebook, an easy one such as Blue Bossa or Satin Doll, and learn it all the way down, soup to nuts. This means you should know the written melody and chord changes cold. If you don't know some of the chords get a chord encyclopedia and learn them (I used books such as the Mickey Baker's How To Play Jazz and Hot Guitar, The Joe Pass Guitar Style, Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry and other to learn what Howard Roberts called "garden variety jazz guitar chords.") Be able to strum the chords to whatever tune(s) you pick in quarter notes in every bar, and you can apply comping rhythms later. There's an app for the Android and iPhone called the iReal pro that plays backing tracks to practice to, and they have a forum where you can download a playlist of 1,300 jazz tunes. It's well worth the $14 or so.

One main reason I'm starting with telling you to learn songs right away is literally everything else - chords, scales, arpeggios, lines, substitutions, rhythmic concepts, and so on - can be applied to tunes. Learning tunes enables you to play with other people, and as you get better you can find work backing singers and horn players, playing in guitar-bass-drum trios, and playing solo guitar if you're learning the songs as chord melodies. Believe me when I tell you almost every jazz musician you can name went through this process of learning and studying standards.

Last, one element of becoming a competent jazz player is rhythm. A lot of the rhythmic vocabulary is acquired naturally by listening, but if you're serious about learning this art form you'll want to study rhythm as well. Over the years I've used a number of books designed to improve reading as tools to help improve my time, including Melodic Rhythms for Guitar, Louis Bellson's rhythm reading books, and most recently Gary Hess's Encyclopedia of Reading Rhythms. These won't necessarily help as far as developing a jazz "feel," but it's mandatory to be comfortable with all the basic units of time so you can have a solid rhythmic base to improvise and interact with other musicians.

I hope this helps, and I'm up for questions about anything else.

u/Broomoid · 3 pointsr/Bass

I'd probably suggest this one, or maybe this one

In terms of walking bass, the only to get better at it is unfortunately just to keep working at it. Start on a not-too-complicated tune such as Satin Doll, or something else with lots of II-V-I progressions in it, or a 12-bar blues, and work up to more complicated charts.

Here's a "quick and dirty" method to work out some walking bass lines. It's a bit simplistic perhaps, but it will at least get you started, and it does work. Assuming a 4/4 time sig:

ON BARS WHERE THERE ARE TWO CHORDS PER BAR:

Beats 1 & 3: On the beats where the chords fall (1 & 3) play the root (at least at first).
Beats 2 & 4: On the other beats (2 & 4) play an approach note that gets you to the root of the next chord, so a note either a half-step or whole step above the note you want to get to. Use your ear to judge which is best. So if the chord on beat 3 is G7, on beat 2 you could play either A, Ab, F# or F.

ON BARS WHERE THERE IS ONLY ONE CHORD PER BAR:

Beat 1: Play the root (again, at first)
Beat 4: Play an approach note as above, so either a half or whole step above or below, whichever sounds best.
Beats 2 & 3: You have a few options:

a. outline the chord notes. For example root, 3, 5 then, or root, 3, 5 then to your approach note.

b. move by step (don't be afraid of chromatic notes, you'd be surprised how often they work). So going from Dmi7 to G7 you could move up be step playing D, E, F, F#.

c. Try going from the root on the first beat up or down to the 5th on the second beat, then keep going in the same direction to the root an octave above or below on the third, before hitting your approach notes.

d. Do something else entirely.

So a sample bassline for the first 8 bars of Satin Doll might look something like this. Note that in the last bar it moves completely by step while in the three bars before that it uses that root-fifth-root pattern. Obviously that's just one way to do it. When you're new to walking bass and learning a tune don't try and go right through straight away. Get from bar 1 to bar 2, then from 1 to 4, and so on. Build it up in stages, and try different ways to get there. If you can figure out how to get up by step to the next chord, then try moving down by step the next time.

Now, before anyone tells me that I am the awful spawn of satan and I have killed Jazz by explaining things this way and thus downvoting me to the diminished 7th circle of Hell, I know it's a very simple way of explaining it, I also know that walking bass can be a wonderfully nuanced thing with infinite variety. But we've got to start somewhere and the above will work. As with everything, the ear has to be the final judge.

u/Poes_Law_in_Action · 3 pointsr/Learnmusic

A fake book is just a book of lead sheets. A lead sheet is the chords and melody of a song with usually little else. They're called fake books because they can be used to fake a tune one does't really know. By and large, the most popular jazz fake book is called the Real Book. There are 3 volumes and 5 editions; it was produced by students at Berklee School of Music in the 70's. That jazz style that is so often in music notation software is based on the Real book's handwritten sheets. It's illegal as the songs are unlicensed, but Hal Leonard has created a 6th edition that is updated and fully licensed. You can get it at amazon. You can find versions of the original at your local seedy music store and online with a bit of searching. There are a whole bunch of others. One really excellent one is the New Real Book published by Sher. The tunes are dead accurate and contain most of the arrangements.

u/activestim · 2 pointsr/jazzguitar

I would personally buy The New Real Book by Sher Music. It's much more accurate than Hal Leonard's Real Book.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Real-Book-1/dp/0961470143

u/rolandkeytar · 1 pointr/Jazz

I asked my university piano teacher a similar question. "What are the best transcriptions of common tunes?" His answer: "The ones you make yourself."

I think this is true. The only charts/transcriptions that you can really trust are the ones that you've created with your own ear. Real books and their many versions and electronic iterations (the irealbook ap is an amazing resource for learning tunes and transcribing simple chord charts) are invaluable sources for being introduced to tunes, but they are merely sketches. Choose an artist/version of a tune that you dig and learn that specific version using the real book chart as a starting point.

Recognizing those subtle differences and artistic choices is the beauty of learning jazz tunes.

That being said, I feel that the most accurate realbooks are the "New Real Book" series . They are based on specific recordings so they stay true to an actual version that a particular artist recorded or performed regularly.

Of course, not every tune is included so you have to rely on your faithful ears to figure out those Shorter tunes you're looking for.

Another resource is The Real Book Videos Subreddit . It has definitive versions of the Real Book tunes.

u/Run_nerd · 1 pointr/piano

The Real Book is a popular one. I've also heard good things about the New Real Book.

u/Sesquipedaliac · 1 pointr/Jazz

This one is pretty much the standard Real Book, based on my experience.

Personally, I'm partial to this version, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone else actually use it.

u/mrstillwell · 1 pointr/jazzguitar

the fifth edition is the classic 'illegal' version of the book. it has some errors but it also has a lot of the hipper changes in it. It will be hard to find in a store cuz its 'illegal' but you can find a pdf of it on piratebay no problem.

the 6th edition is the legal version published by hal leonard. It's designed to be a legal replacement for the 5th edition. the page turns are 99% the same and the errors have been fixed. Its usually priced lower than the original and can be bought or ordered easily from any dealer. Some of the changes aren't as hip but its a suitable replacement to the original, shady 5th edition. I reccomend getting the 6th edition first.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Book-Edition-Instruments/dp/B000VZSOI4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1394211867&sr=8-2&keywords=the+real+book

The Sherr music books are really good but they're not standard like the original illegal book or the 6th edition.

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Real-Book-Volume/dp/0961470143/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1394211895&sr=8-11&keywords=the+real+book

u/Yeargdribble · 1 pointr/piano

I saw the Hal Leonard "The Real Book" mentioned here, and while it's great for older standards (and absolutely indispensable), I would suggest The New Real Book series by Sher Music. For someone who is classically trained it is less visually jarring and, honestly, quite a bit better put together in terms of the detail of the charts themselves as well as appendices and some good explanations of stuff. Especially nice for people who aren't as familiar with extended tertian harmony is a page that gives and example of how to spell every chord. If you don't know what the hell a Ab13(#11) is, you can check that page and it will tell you. You'll still need to learn good voicing habits and how to use your right hands for accompaniment, but a book like this is great and really geared toward someone of your training while "The Real Book" (Hal Leonard) is a little more hardcore and while it's a must have, I think it's a bit deep end for someone who is just getting their feet wet.

Also, you can look at stores and find plenty of random pop, R&B, Rock, etc. fake books that you can dig through to see if they work for you.

Beyond this advice on books, I think OnaZ is spot on with the types of skills you want to learn. I assume with your classical training comes decent technique and a background in theory, so this will probably greatly expedite your progress.