Picking a Fake Book

[Beginner Bass]

I'm looking for an inexpensive fake book (Around $50, preferably below). I'm trying to accomplish a handful of things with this. I want to work on my reading, work on my walking based on the chords, and just have some standards on hand for future gigs. I'm not very familiar with this, so what are your opinions? I was looking at Hal-Leonards Real Books, as they're fairly inexpensive compared to the others I've seen, though they also appear smaller, but I wanted some more opinions before I did.

[elgecko]

Despite my dislike for the 6th edition, the Real Book is THE standard jazz fake book.

[MalcolmAmos]

If you are into Country then. http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Count...2&sr=1-1-spell
Picking a fake book, look for one that has the songs you like to play. That's what I did with the above book, I looked at how many of the songs we play it had before I bought it.

700 songs. It has most everything we have in our gig book. If you have a large music store in your area spend an afternoon browsing

[Beginner Bass]

I was looking more for jazz than country.

[MalcolmAmos]

MelBay Jazz Guitar Standards normally 20 songs to a volume, pick the one that has the songs you like.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...itar+standards

[fish slapper]

My Jam uses Vol. 1 and 2 of the Hal Leonard books (6th edition). I have all the books from 5th Edition incase I go to a jam that uses that. My advise is to start with Vol. 1 of the 6th edition and look for a jam. Then get what the other folks in the jam are using.

[arose11]

+1 on the Real Book. It has a good selection of standards. It will have a lot of tunes people will most likely know and be able to play with you. I also got mine because ALOT of j**z players I've came across is currently or has used that book as a reference at some point in time.

[longfinger]

For jazz try browsing through these ones at your local music store...

http://www.shermusic.com/new/1883217091.shtml
What's great about that one is that is has all the introductory verses to the standard songs. (downer: every song becomes a two-pager)

or this one
http://www.shermusic.com/new/0961470143.shtml

Or just make a note of the titles found here
http://www.shermusic.com/

and check them out at your store. Pick a book with the most songs you'd like to learn.

IMHO, the "New Real Book" volumes makes both the old "Real Book" and the old "Real Vocal Book" volumes, obsolete. The new ones have lyrics, better publishing information, better page layouts, better notation fonts, better and clearer chord changes, are easier to read and are more useful to have. Of course some songs are found in one and not the other, but that's life.

Generally, I'd stay away from fake books with more than one song on a page. The fonts and layouts used on those are too hard to read off of at practices. Those kind of books are more like anthologies of songs to studied at home, rather than fake book to help fake your way through a tune you don't know too well on a band stand.

[Beginner Bass]

I went to a store, but they all seemed pretty pricey to me. They sell retail, but the online stores seem cheaper.

[thombo]

+1 on a real book... ebay.

fwiw, consider a treble clef version, as you can share it on a bandstand, and most charts that other musicians give you will be not be F-clef.

[Beginner Bass]

I've already decided on getting it in treble for that reason.