The Best Fake Book Ever: For Keyboard, Vocal, Guitar, and All "C" Instruments (4th Edition)

Great 'resource' book for a great many genres of music and it covers a multitude of years worth of songs. I have other fake books, but this has so much more than any before. It was all I'd hoped it would be. It IS kind of thick - by necessity, but it still sits quite well on my keyboard stand. I love the fact that all the songs fit on their own page - I HATE page turning in the middle of a song!

This fake book is like having an entire food court of a smattering of songs in your home, rather than a more specialized palate of songs. I gave this as a gift to a budding jazz pianist, for that very reason. I wanted her to be able to have a tour de force of great songs of many styles. I had read reviews before and sure enough the "bigness" of this item is probably the biggest issue. My musician love took the book and rebound it herself so that it was stay together more securely before the pages started falling out with use. Having done that, it handles very well and she is enjoying the exploration of it.

My observations:1. This book is huge! It might not fit in your music stand.2. You might need binder clips to hold the book open to your designated page.3. Many of the songs don’t have the true melody within the treble clef line. (So much for flute solos.) You need the chords before the song sounds right.4. There’s a lot of duplication between this book and other Hal Leonard “fake books.” If you buy this one, you might not need any others.

Love the variety of songs. The reason for the 4 star rating is I am doubtful the binding of this will hold up over time-will probably have to put in a binder before it is over. My only other caution is for those with poor eyesight. You can imagine with the number of songs in the book that the print has to be pretty small to fit all of these treasures in one spot...so make sure you have your glasses and plenty of light.

Not that great. Some good Ray Charles, Beatles, as well as a few (very few) other gems. Be prepared to skip around a bunch. I've only found around maybe, maybe 20 tunes to play out of this book. It seems like a whole lotta junk is crammed in here, very eclectic mix thrown together. Much prefered the Ultimate Fake Book to this one. Even some of the gems are screwed up by the bad writing- wrong notes, chords, changes, and at times all three simultaneously. But honestly I'd buy it again. 46

I am a beginner guitar player. I was looking for big print with beginner notes to follow. I didn't get that with this book. The print was VERY small! The only thing I DID LIKE about this book was; for each song it gave the writer, the person singing the song and the date it was released. LOVED that part only! All the song titles were interesting as well. Sadly, I sent the book back. :-(

CONS: The print is too small to see well. Compared to my other music the printing is also lighter, making it that much harder to read. It is very big and very heavy. You may want to consider breaking it down into smaller sections if you have a keyboard with a plastic music holder.PROS: There is something here for everyone from beginner to intermediate so if you are just starting out, as I am, there are songs to graduate to as you learn and improve. The song selection is large and varied. I like that after the Table of Contents they divided songs into categories as well. Some of the categories are Broadway Show Tunes, Jazz, Children's, Country, Big Band, Hits of the 50's through Hits of the 2000's, Movie and TV, etc. Even songs that are in 3/4 time are separately listed.For the amount of songs and variety it is a good buy but none of that will be of much use if you can't see it well and that's why I gave it 3 stars.

I buy these used fake books often - I must own 7/8 books - Use them for my combo. I wish we had a 60's 70's fake book for C, Bb, Eb. Great value.

Print to small for sight reading had to return it

I need it for my singing practise an I am glad to be able to start now with my teacher

For budget reasons, I ordered a « good - acceptable » book. For reference, the new one is a 4th edition according to the picture.First book I received was a third edition, that belonged to a library and was borrowed many times since april 2009, so about 10 years old edition. The problem is that was used and abused to the point that I could hardly turn the pages, the plastic comb being very damaged and many pages half torn out of it and lower right corner curled ( pictures ); so I returned it with appropriate comments... and was promptly refunded by Amazon.But I still wanted that book, so I ordered another one, « good - acceptable », even cheaper, but with great reviews about the supplier.This time, I received a 1990 first edition! But since it was really acceptable ( pages edges a little bit yellow and very clean otherwise ), I kept it, even if I would have preferred a more up-to-date book...These are very good books, great value, worth five stars, perfect for the way I play, but I don’t think I’ll ever get a used one again!I took off two stars because the first one I received was absolutely not acceptable!

JUST AS THE TITLE SAYS

There is nothing fake about this book, nearly all the songs are transcribed exactly as youve always heard them. A bit crammed in and a bit faint in dim lighting, but great for sing along party's. A broad cross section for all taste, better than the other fake book which I have. Its shame amazon don't list the songs on their web.