What is a Fake Book?

The Fake Books are a series of "popular music" books published by the famous Hal Leonard Corporation. Each Fake Book contains hundreds of well-known songs with music that is carefully designed to let you play better with less effort.

Each Fake Book includes the full lyrics of each song. Many Fake Books present all the songs in the Key of C -- which is simpler than many other keys but still sounds amazingly good.

According to the dictionary, a fake book (or lead sheet) is a tool designed to help musicians, whether amateur or professional, play music more easily. A fake book has just a single line of music, similar to the right hand in standard piano music. To make it even simpler, there is only one note at a time, representing the melody of a song. The Hal Leonard closely follows this concept in their Fake Book series.

In each Hal Leonard Fake Book will also notice musical symbols consisting of letters and numbers above the musical notes, such as Cm, B7, etc. These are chords that you can easily play on your keyboard using the techniques described in your ebook, Playing Popular Music With Ease, creating an attractive accompaniment for your music.

Don't let the name, fake book, fool you. Despite its simplicity, a fake book allows for unlimited complexity and musical creativity!