What other things in the Real Book do you know about that are just plain wrong?? Also, the Harmony 101 course is available right now for 30% off, no code required! cornellmusicacademy.com/harmony

Charles: "...The Real Book, at least until about 2004, was illegal." Me: *slowly turns and gives the sideeye to my 1999 copy of The Real Book on the shelf behind me*

In the early 90's I walked into a music store and I said (too) loudly "I need a Fake Book. I was told you sold them". The shopkeep put his hand up and said "shhhhh....those are illegal". Then he took me to the backroom and sold me one for $25 cash. No shit.

all the keys you mentioned for jazz are all trumpet and especially saxophone-friendly. that's the reason they're used so often in jazz.

A lot of these mistakes come from only listening to one version of the song and deciding arbitrarily to make it the model. The Blue Train in C minor with a weird backdoor progression comes from a Cedar Walton recording and But Not for Me with a dominant II chord is from the Miles Davis recording. For some reason, the students must've thought everyone should play it that way instead of just writing down the original and letting people make changes they want in-person.

Just a note to the editor: the piano levels are maxing out the UV meter in this video - coming out a tad distorted (clipping) through the whole range. This was interesting but my comment has nothing to do with The Real Book. I get a sense of pride when a younger person finds the voice and styling's of Ella Fitzgerald "beautiful". My mother sang in collage and Fitzgerald had a lot of influence on my mom. She worked hard to recreate that throaty resonance of Elle's voice. What I hear in my memory are tunes my mother sang while working in the kitchen, or sang sitting on my bed to sing me to sleep, sounding a lot like (what I realize now as) the recordings of Elle. I can not hear Elle Fitzgerald sing without confusing the sound with my own mother's voice. Beautiful, indeed!

I can't tell you how much I questioned my ear when I used The Real Book to try and learn Anthropology. "Wait, there's a B natural on the 2nd beat? ....waaaaaait" and ran like I was on fire to some old recordings of it with Bird and Satch and slowed them way down. There's no Cb in that head, but it's on the paper. After seeing a handful of other "choices were made" notes in the transcriptions I realized the Real Book is indeed "close enough for jazz" and basically just treat it like a suggestion.

My band director had this massive stack of real books in the back, easily like 100 of them and each and every one was in pristine condition (most of our other music books or sheet music copies were pretty beat up) and yes each and every one was treated like the holy grail lmao

Bill Evans's take on Like Someone in Love is one of the main tracks that got me into jazz

It happens everywhere. Ever tried looking up online guitar tabs or chords to something? Sometimes you start playing and you're like... wtf were they smoking? This is not even close. And then there are like 7 versions of it with different amounts of "upvotes".. each with their own problems and you kinda have to mix and match... but hey.. it's free.. for the most part.

Jazz musicians like flat keys because wind instruments are more accustomed to flat keys. trombones and trumpets are both in Bb, and alto saxes are in Eb. Flat keys are therefore wayyyy easier to play in.

my theory professor went to -Berkley- Berklee and told us about how it was illegal and the proceed to ask us for a flash drive so we can have a digital copy

It was always my understanding that the changes used in Real Book I were taken directly from the specific recordings listed at the bottom of each lead sheet (or interpolated from multiple sources if so listed). That's what we did anyway, 30-some years ago! So for "Like Someone In Love" the idea was that if you listened to Coltrane's version from the "Lush Life" album, you could here the changes he and his group used and see them go by as well. I double-checked that this was still the case just now, it is still is... with an asterisk! You are absolutely right about the different key change, even from the lead sheet to Coltrane's recording. His is in Ab and the lead sheet (as you mentioned) is in Eb!! I never knew that! LOL! However, adjusting for the key change, the chords are exactly right. On the other hand, when I played Blue Trane for the first time in high school, I was just playing straight from the record. (Honestly can't remember if we had an Aebersold record at the time...) As far as "But Not For Me" (RB II), I couldn't tell you where those changes came from. The record they used isn't listed at the bottom like it is in RB I. And yeah, I bought my first Real Book in 1988 from another college student for $30. Still got it, too!! And yeah, it was kind of like buying pot - you had to know a dude who knew a dude! LOL!

Flat keys are preferred because it works much better for the transposing wind and brass instruments like trumpet and tenor sax in Bb and alto sax in Eb, so a piece in Eb (three flats) would be in F for trumpet and tenor and in C for alto, as opposed to say a piece in A (three sharps) which the horns would have to play either in B (five sharps) or F# (six sharps!)

3:30-3:40 Because it’s easier for horn players to play flat keys as opposed to sharp keys.

This is one of many reasons my jazz teachers DESPISED the real book. (even though a lot of us used it) They always pushed having us learn the melodies (and changes) by ear, in all 12 keys. I remember hearing stories of some of the musicians calling tunes but in completely wild keys, like F# or B, as a way to "weed out" anyone who really couldn't hang. I'm still pretty weak on transcribing chord changes, but I definitely go for the recordings as a better way of "how it goes."

Blue Train is actually corrected in the sixth edition of the real book.

Man, i’m a musician and I just recently have been getting into your vids. I’ve been busy and bogged down by life recently and i’ve not had time to play any kind of music. But watching your videos kinda sparked something in me that was like “hey, play some piano when you get home from work, arrange a song, get a jazz combo together.” So thank you for helping me feel that feeling again. Keep doin what you’re doin! Boom, subscribed.

I always had some mental questions about the “Real Book” as some of the arrangements seem to be pointlessly complex but challenging. Fascinating stuff. Thanks for reminding me how a great Ella was

On the flats vs sharps thing, I grew up doing voice so it didn't matter to me at all, ever. Then I started teaching myself guitar, and sharp keys were always easier because you could play more of their chords in standard tuning without having to barre. Then I started teaching myself keys and they're all kinda the same, though I prefer flats because I feel like sharps are cliche due to the tendency of guitar-focused music to use those keys. From what I understand, flat tunings are preferred among jazz circles because it's easier to work with brass and woodwind instruments in them.

When so many jazz tunes are played in b-keys (F, Bb, EB and so on), it’s probably because the horns playing jazz are tuned in Bb or Eb (saxes, trumpets, clarinets). Well yes, The Real Book is full of faults. It goes for melodies and especially for chords. Another thing about Real Book is the selection of tunes. There are so many weird pieces in Real Book nobody ever plays and there are so many lovely jazz tunes that are just not there.

First lesson from my jazz piano teacher in college was, "Throw out your Real Book." Thanks to him my transcription skills improved dramatically. The RB is a good guide, but trust your ears...

Adam Neely wasn't wrong when he said that the Real Book is a "jazz shibboleth." (If you don't know what that means, check out his own video on the Real Book from a few years back.)

You should look at the music for both Blade Runner movies. They’re both really interesting compositions.

I am so fascinated with music theory and the relationships between certain chords in certain instances and how changing a very tiny detail will suddenly change the overall mood of the music. that said, I do not understand it at all even though I've listened to hundreds of hours of people playing examples and explaining it. I couldn't tell the difference between the RB version and Ella's version until he stopped and played the two parts side-by-side.

We do love those keys expect for 1, I nevvvverrrr seen a jazz musician who likes playing in C. Even c jam blues ends up getting modulated lol

not a jazz musician here but im from bangladesh and a student of indian classical music and nazrul sangeet. this video gives me so much more appreciation for what my music teacher always used to tell us - gaan holo gurumukhi bidya, which literally means you learn singing directly from the mouth of a guru or teacher, which i guess can be generalized as something along the lines of, music is always learnt from an instructor first hand. he always told us that the shwarolipi or sheet music is for when you already know the song, but forgot the melody in a specific place or got confused about a specific part. basically to help you brush up on or confirm something you already know, never your first or initial source of receiving instruction. only after we had learnt how to sing a particular song would we attempt to play it too and it would always be by ear. to this day i have shelves upon shelves filled with shwarolipi books but i only consult them when i need to, and never learn directly from them. but i understand it might be very different for instrumentalists as opposed to how it is for me, primarily a vocalist. also, this of course completely disregards the never ending debate of which the "real" or "true" melody is for individual pieces that have not been standardized as certain genres have historically been better documented than others, but that subsequently brings in the question of what the acceptable extent of artistic interpretation is in terms of the level of freedom given to the performer, but im rambling now so ill stop because like i said my point was that i have a little newfound appreciation for my (otherwise very strict) ustad thanks to this

I'd love to watch an entire video of you just correcting all the mistakes from the Real Book with the recordings. Love your content!

The first time I came across one of these jazz fake books was way back in 1973. I was playing a B3 in the noon/afternoon session in this club. The main player who played organ for the main attraction in the evening used to leave this binder on the music rack. When I checked it out, it was full of mimeographed sheets of hand written fake sheets (melody lead and chords) of jazz tunes arranged in alphabetical order. To a musician who just started gigging at that time, it seemed like such a treasure trove. I used it while I was there but wasn’t able to take it out of the venue to xerox it. I later found out that the binder full of fake sheets could only be bought privately through special contacts. I never found the right connection at the time. I believe that that was one of the earlier renditions of the Real Book. Much later in the 90’s, a musician friend of mine gave me a PDF containing 12 of these fake books including the Real Book and something called the New Real Book. This type of fake books is good to use when you’re in a jam. One could hardly expect absolute fidelity in terms of the transcriptions in this kind of publications. Many people must have been involved in the compilation of these sheets, with some transcribers better than others. Besides, like others mentioned in this thread, jazz tunes have different renditions performed by different artists. Even with the same artist, sometimes they would use different chord substitutions and different phrasing of the melody on different recordings.

The reason Jazz musicians favour the flat keys is that they are more natural for the horns. Guitarists, on the other hand, far prefer sharp keys, as they give access to more open strings- but jazz guitar, being mainly a rhythm instrument, has had to suck it up and adapt to the flat keys. It's been said of Parker that, being self-taught, he didn't realize that saxophonists played mainly from C to Ab, and learned equal facility in all keys- which, of course, put him ahead of the pack.

In the appendices of the Real Book the author cites the versions of the recording used to write out the changes to the song , and in some cases the recordings used. They transpose the music to more horn friendly keys which is why .

Between this, and many websites that provide chord charts for various contemporary genres getting the chords 80% correct (most of them always skip the bass of the chord, or misinterpret chord voicings), I’ve grown to trust my ear and just make my own charts for gigs.

I think a big reason jazz is often in flat keys is because it's old old old beginnings came from marching music, which was often done in flats. But I'm not a music historian and that might be wrong.

Hard to argue though how important this earliest, if illegal, reference book was to those of my boomer generation. It soon became the essential standard jazz player wannabe repertoire list, and it enabled welcomed access to an entire generation of musicians, many of whom, like myself, would not have had the time to "sort it all out" without the information it offered. We should also not forget the role it seems to have played in providing life-support to what had become a rapidly dying form of popular music. I'm admittedly reaching here, but The Real Book (the product of students and faculty at Berkeley?) is IMHO was as important to the devotion of jazz musicians then as the Bible was to early Christianity. Sure...both contain errors requiring continued study, reinterpretation and refinement, but in the end both are supremely important works...their impact and importance should never be underestimated.

I feel like flats are easier than sharp's because it sounds better to move the route note down a 1/2 step than it does to move it up. Therefore you hear that half step key change in a lot of western music, so naturally we have more practice in it.

flat keys in concert pitch transpose easier for Bb and Eb instruments (horns) for example, Bb concert is C for a trumpet, but G concert is A (more sharps therefore percieved to be more difficult to play) strings are the opposite, and prefer sharp keys because they fit the open strings better. a lot of beginner violinists aren't actually taught flats or f naturals until much later on because they haven't developed the ear to listen for the difference in pitch that early on, something I learnt the hard way when a bunch of beginners tried to play an arrangement I did and had no clue how to play Ab :D

Please cover Donald Fagen when you get a chance. The Nightfly in particular has some wild chords and harmony. Kamakiriad's second half is also fantastic.

I used the Real Book in college to help me understand what I was hearing on records. It helped me solidify the voicing, progressions and rhythm into my own playing .

I wouldn't call the arrangement of "Like Someone in Love" in the Real Book "wrong". It's just a different arrangement, with some different passing chords that employ various II-V changes. I've always liked the Real Book version, and frankly I wouldn't play the version arranged for Ella unless trying to play THAT particular arrangement. The Real Book version lends itself to a jam session much more easily, probably its intended purpose.

Had no idea this was illegal! We always had one, but it was always just.....there. I don't remember anyone buying it, nor do I recall seeing in a store, so this sure explains a lot

Personaly I tend to start the song 'Like Someone In Love' (in Eb major) not with the tonic at all, but instead with the chords Dm7(b5) then G7(#11, +5) then Cm7, followed by Fmaj7 (add 2)/A, then chromatically descending Ab7 (#11) Gm7, Gb 13 (#11) Fm7, etc. Although Bill Evans didn't actually do this, it's the sort of thing he often did do...

Great video Charles. I’ve discovered a few songs in TRB over the years that I realized were wrong but unfortunately none come to mind at the moment. What really got me excited was when you “added a few chords” to the turnaround in “But Not For Me.” Those chords you added were beautiful and it’s that part of jazz that seems to elude my ability to understand even after more than 50 years of playing piano. Is what I’m describing something that your Harmony 101 course covers? I’m just a hobby player but those kinds of tricks are what I really crave to know how to pull off. You make everything look easy but of course it’s not.

You mentioned you find flat keys easier to deal with than sharp keys. This changes per instrument. Violin, viola, and cello are tuned in 5ths and are generally easier in sharp keys.

I remember trying to learn "but not for me" after listening to chet baker's version and being so confused and let down by the real book chords

I used the real book when my friends and I played in a jazz combo during high school. It was good fun and was a great book to get us familiar with a lot of the standards! A video on the history of the Arban’s book would be cool. That is the trumpet players bible

In the early 80's a friend of mine told me to go to this particular music store, wait till I was the only customer, then tell the guy working there I was interested in a jazz fake book, and tell him Rex (my friend's name) sent me. I did, the guy took me in the back room, unlocked a big drawer and sold me the Real Book for 25 bucks cash, He put the book in a brown paper bag, and then put it in the store bag. I later went back and bought Real Book vol. 2 and Vintage Jazz Standards vol. 1 and 2 (in one vol.) Really. I still have them!

I find sharps way easier to deal with than flats- but that’s because my primary instrument is guitar, which people tend to conceptualize in sharps (and also keys with sharps tend to have more open strings than keys with flats) I’m sure if I started as a trumpet player it would be the opposite

I’ve been wanting someone to do a video on this for forever. Fantastic job as always! I’ve run into this problem so many times.

In the Alaska the musicians who run the local jazz festival recently put together the AK Real Book made up of Alaskan jazz musician's and composer's songs. We eached waved the copyright for print in favor of it becoming an educational tool to help grow the local music scene. I have several songs in the book and it was great to play this year's festival with an entirety original set between myself the trumpet player. The pianist, who was someone I respected immensely and had been wanting to work with for at least 20 years, ended up telling me he only said yes to the festival gig because we were doing original music. I'm not saying we are going to give away the royalties to recording or other situations, but I think it's a great tool for jam sessions and community building. Love you channel by the way!!!

Play a wind instrument, press the button: note goes down. Play a string instrument press the finger: note goes up. Hence Band=flat keys; orchestra=sharp keys.

The Real Book is the fundamental compendium of jazz. It's done more for our music than any other document. As far as I'm concerned, it's analogous to the Bible, which has errors too. In the late 80's, I wrote to Chick Corea asking if he minded that people were playing his tunes from the RB. I felt incredibly honored to receive a response from his wife. She said it was fine with Chick. Since Jamie Aebersold had obtained the legal right to publish a lot of Real Book tunes, I also wrote him. He sent me a handwritten response. I don't remember exactly how it was worded, but as I recall he didn't express any problem with it. I also wrote BMI and ASCAP. They didn't bother responding. If you want to learn to transcribe, do it. Most criticism of the Real Book comes from snobs trying to pretend they're cool because they don't use it.

Day 2 of saying: I think you should look at some of the music from Dirty Loops. Specifically their cover of Thriller, Ring of Saturn, and Follow the Light. They are super groovy and the chord movements are incredible

I think it should be noted that a lot of people (including me) would "obtain" cassette copies of Aebersold play-along records and then use the Real Book to play over them. The key would be different from time to time though. So double-illegal. Also there are tunes that aren't even in the same key across all editions of the Real Book -- in particular I remember _On Green Dolphin Street_ as being in E♭ in the first edition, but in C in the third edition. So it was often necessary to note on the set list what key we were playing a song in. On the flat/sharp thing... I actually prefer sharps because for whatever reason, the fingering patterns are generally less awkward on a woodwind. The one real exception is flute, but being a C instrument it's not playing in sharps nearly as often, and it's not like sharp keys are _bad_ on flute in any way. It's just that they're not any easier than the flat keys, and you tend to see the flat keys more unless you're in orchestra. If given a choice between reading a part in C♯ and a part in D♭, I'm going to choose C♯ in spite of having more in the key signature (7 vs. 5). Of course it matters how complex the part is -- I don't really care whether you write it in F♯ or G♭ if it's easy to read either way. This has nothing to do with the difficulty of performing it, the audience is not going to know or care what's on my page. My fingers are going to do the same thing either way (ideally). I just have a slight preference for sharps over flats, which only really kicks in at the F♯/G♭ side of the circle of fifths.

Another problem with fake book sheets in general being “authoritative” is that many of our jazz standards were originally written for full orchestration. For example, Jerome Kern’s All The Things You Are was written for a Broadway play with FOUR lead voices (two male, two female) singing both counterpoint and call-and-response, backed up by orchestra. Later, individual recording artists started singing adaptations of it, reducing it to one voice with rhythm section to accompany. How can any fake book lead sheet even begin to approximate Kern’s original score? What is even the point of trying to apply a standard of “authenticity to the original” to a jazz cover of anything?

Miles Davis quintet starts “But not for me” on the the V of V on the 1954 “Bag’s Groove” album, Some of the mistakes in the book are from specific instrumental recordings (not based on the original composition).

Interesting point at 3:40 about finding flats easier... as a classically trained musician, I find that less accidentals is always easier regardless if it is flats or sharps. I guess it is just easier when you are playing always from what's written in the score. So G would be easier than Eb. I wonder if jazz musicians find flats easier because they are not constrained to sheet music

3:39 We like to play with more flats because the most used solo instruments like trumpet and saxophone are transposing to Bb or Eb. The trombone is also a Bb instrument, but is written in C for whatever reason. In our brass band we also have a lot more flats than sharps wich also is due to the fingerings in Bb on trumpet is (to me and some other trumpets I know) easiert than in a key with too many sharps. In classical orchestras it is inverted. They focus on the string instruments with the violin being tuned to G D A and E, so they prefer keys with way too many sharps. As Bb trumpet I have to play in E when the concert pitch is D and I really dislike it. I love my flats.

I love how much your videos have taught me about music. I've played for 20 years and used to throw theory aside for the sake of time, and I've never had an easier time learning than watching your videos. Thank you!

I find flats generally easier to read than sharps. It may be partly due to some of the Jazz repertoire I've played, but getting into some of the Classical music that's in C-sharp Major and my brain is sometimes saying, Nope! Yes, I can try to trick it by thinking of the enharmonics, thinking of some of the notes and chores as flats instead, but then that only works to a degree. Yes, going back and taking a better and proper look, I can break it down and it makes sense -- at a quick glance or reading something down for the first time, flats over sharps (anything from like B Major or higher number of sharps) any day!

I'm all about the flats also, rather than the sharps. This is partially because Iearned music in school band, playing low brass instruments, which were bass clef, B-flat pitched instruments. For the last 30 years, I have not played a horn, but only piano. I can certainly read and play sharps but, like Charles, flats feel more like home to me, for whatever reason. Except C-flat and F-flat, which really annoy me when I rarely run across them.

3:36 Wind instruments are built in flat keys, so it's easier for them. Just as guitar players tend to like sharp keys because their instruments are built with the open strings E, A, D, G, B, E.

YES!! I've noticed for years that flats seem infinitely easier than sharps. To the extent that my college professor would assign me Chopin pieces full of double sharps (to try to force my brain to balance it out, I guess?). 😆😵‍💫 But -- anyway -- THANK YOU for saying that out loud. Happy to learn I'm not alone!

The late great West Coast composer and pianist Dick Hindman (not Dick Hyman from the East Coast, another master jazz pianist) would right out a model arrangement. Starting with simple lead sheet of original melody and chord changes. Then arrange it for a simple model arrangement which is a basic arrangement (for piano) using simple but nice voice leading, maybe 4 parts. Then branch out with a more developed arrangement with a beautiful reharmonization all written out. Then transpose these arrangements into the keys and write that out accurately. We learn so much from doing this from just one tune that you can take forward to other tunes.

For "Like someone in love" or "Blue Train" you could argue that there are "original" versions by virtue of the tunes being introduced to the public in recorded form. For a tune like "All the things", it's not so simple. This tune was written for the musical "Very warm for May". In the musical versions I've heard, it is performed with a verse, and as a rubato type ballad. In jazz, the verse is omitted, and I'm not even sure who came up with the "jazz intro". It's still very much a cycle of fifths tune whatever version is being played, but for a lot of those old Broadway tunes, both the rhythm and harmony, as well as the phrasing of the melody, is very different from the original Broadway sheet music. The point is that many of these tunes were appropriated by jazz musicians at the time. They were tunes that everybody "knew", hence the term "standard", so you could have a common repertoire to play on a jam session. By the 70s, when the book was made, a lot of these common references had been lost among musicians. Sure, it's weird that they didn't use the original version of "Blue Train", but I'm not sure that chart was written with the idea of the Real Book becoming a standard reference, it was probably some guy's transcription of whatever version he liked. My point is that in some ways it's unfair to say that the the Real Book is "wrong".

Hey man, could you do a video on James Blakes "Retrograde" ? Specifically the live version (Live on KEXP) where he plays the really juicy but kinda abstract chords? I've always found that piece really unique with a strange blend of styles that work great together. Would love to hear your insight on it!

In the pre-Internet early '90's I bought my "Real Book" from the keyboard player in a local jazz band. I will cherish it forever. It is true that a bunch of stuff is wrong. It is also true that at the time it was head and shoulders above anything else available.

It's called "chord substitution" Jazz musicians do this all the time to make music sound more interesting and interesting to play over. If you listen to many groups they ALWAYS change things. Doesn't make it "wrong" just different. If you look at the OFFICIAL sheet music for many tunes & compare to the most popular recordings of these songs, you WILL find differences.

The most popular among jazz musicians versions of "Like Someone in love" are made by Bud Powell and Dexter Gordon. Dexter surely did the best and incomparable version so the music sheet based on it

I play concert percussion in three concert bands and a brass band. I almost never see key signatures with sharps. I suspect that it is because of transposing instruments like trumpet and clarinet. If the music is in the key of Bb major, then the sheet music for Bb instruments is in the key of C major. For transposing instruments, major scale key signatures with sharps always end up with more sharps or flats, but major scale key signatures with flats always end up with fewer.

Lol my trumpet professor remembers buying the real book from some guy in the back of his van

A large part of the job of pianists, guitarists and arrangers is to re-harmonise standard tunes/songs, and sometimes to put them in different time signatures, or different rhythmic feels - salsa instead of swing, for example. My gripe with the use of the Real Book is that instead of being used as a guide, is used as though it were 'gospel' - with no thought as to the relationship between melody and harmony, harmony to bass line, etc. All too often the chords provided in the Real Book are not as good either as the orignal - or more importantly, as the *could* be. This is where Kurt Elling, Dianne Reeves, Gretchen Parlato, Cécile McLorin Salvant and others really stand out, from my POV. The great singers - such as Kurt Elling, Dianne Reeves, Tierney Sutton, Gretchen Parlato,Salvant, etc. - all work with pianists/arrangers to put their own stamp on any given song. The same is true of other great musicians - such as Keith Jarrett, Jacob Collier, John Taylor, McCoy Tyner, bands like Snarky Puppy - all these artsists go to great lengths to produce a version of any given song or tune which is unlike anyone else's version. IMO this is where so many work-a-day jazz musicians are being lazy, and merely follow what's in the Real Book. It means the musicians don't have to think. Indeed, a lot of people are not gifted in re-harmonising tunes. But they should acquire this skill, and use it, if they wish to be elevated to a higher level.

Ahhh the Real Book. I remember as a young Jazz Trumpet music major buying one at a music store in Hollywood. The attended reached under the counter pleased it in a brown paper bag ant told me to put it right away in my gig bag. To be young and coping a music book like I was scoring a nickel bag. 😆

Back in 1968, when I was 13 years old, my Dad bought me three fake books. The cover prices were $50, $50, and $35 but they actually sold for about half that. I still have them.

As someone else mentioned, flat keys are horn players' favs. In a middle school band you start off with the concert Bb scale. Then F, then Eb.

Jazz is often written in flat keys because the saxophones transpose in Bb and Eb (so playing a C major scale on an alto sax sounds like an Eb major scale). So flat keys are just more natural for them to play.

Talking "Right" chords and "Wrong" chords in a jazz context- very funny!

As a a Jazz musician in the UK, who has grown up with the Real Book, and even run my own successful jam session for over a decade ... My parents bought me a Hal Leonard "New Real Book Vol. 1" (It cost them £25 - the price on the cover was $35 US) ... for my 16th birthday. But when I got to University, a new world of illicit publications tempted and consumed me ... including Real Books 1, 2 & 3, all on a single CD. All of the very best jazz songs on a single CD. (heaven!) A very few songs were the same as in my favoured legal New Real Book - most of the chords in the old Real Book were approximations at best (your "Blue Trane" example is amazing - surely NOBODY could be that inaccurate with such an easy song!) But the New Real Book is often "too" accurate - exactly the sort of nonsense that led to substitutions being put into old Real Book songs from the get-go, and taken as fact. But - I need to work with other people ... My tablet now contains Old Real Books 1, 2 and 3, New Real Books 1,2 and 3; plus the extenstions of the New Real Book .. "The Standards Real Book" and "The All Jazz Real Book" ... plus Rebecca Mauleon's brilliant Salsa Real Book (by Hal Leonard - in the same style as all of the New Real Books, with explanation of chord symbols at the beginning, as usual) I applaud the Hal Leonard series of "new" real books for attempting to standardise chord symbols. I went along with it, because there's nothing better - and they achieved their goal: C means C major CMI means C minor CMI7 means C minor 7 CMA7 means C major 7 (no triangle needed) The only thing that isn't easy to read in Hal's books is the way the bars are set out. Even the easiest 16-bar melody often has 3 bars on the first line, 2 bars on the next, 5 bars on the next, 4 bars at the bottom of the page, and 2 bars - the ONLY 2 bars - on the next page, with a repeat mark back to the first page. Really poor - for a publication that wants to be the go-to for jazz sight-readers. Anyway "New" Real Book is still my go-to ... but most of the people I know only do "Old" Real Book .. doesn't matter .. just before we play the tune, I get them to snap-shot the music on their phone. So we know we're in the same key!

As a trombonist turned bass player, my take on the F# =/= Gb is; "flats are easier on brass instruments than sharps are because you typically learn/think of the harmonic series from the top down, and sharps are easier on string instruments than flats because you learn from the root note, up" For beginning bands, the key of Bb is easier than C (B natural suuucks on a trombone, for example; I literally couldn't reach that far when I started playing because my arms weren't long enough), and Eb and Ab are about the same, with some transposing instruments doing better or worse, depending. Orchestras sometimes start with the key of C, but are generally very comfortable in G or D as well, which is something that's also true for banjo/guitar folk groups as well.

Well, I think, aside from just the original Real Book writers transcribing the book from random arbitrary recordings that they liked, the real reason for the strange or "wrong" chords changes that weren't found in the "original" recordings (in quotes, because why is the recording the original and not the composer's original manuscript?) is that the chord changes are purely for the function of having chord changes to play when improvising and taking turns soloing over the song.

Great piece. These 'approximations' are prevalent in printed music. Back in the nineties when Becker and Fagen decided to tour again after 20 years (resulting in the album "Alive In America") they decided to "re familiarize" themselves with their back catalogue by going through the various notated versions of their work. Such were the inaccuracies, they decided to go back, dig out the recordings and brush up by ear...

I managed a music store from ‘94-‘04 and our owner was real weird about stocking any fake books. We had our ordering manager get us some despite his reluctance. I sold many copies of “The Real Book” not realizing it was illegal and wished now I would have bought one myself. Now, we carried many fake books from major publishers like Hal Leonard but we kept ALL of them hidden from our 70 year old owner just to avoid him some stress.

this channel is just great, man! Well done!

Growing up as a kid playing the Trombone, the flat keys were easier because Bb is first position and the first note we learned to play. That is my guess. For Brass instruments, the flat notes are typically in a first position. ?

The problem is a lot of Jazz harmonies are better, or at least more colourful. So either we play true to composer or play what’s more interesting. I remember years back learning Night and Day, and had the Cole Porter sheet music, in C this opens on C minor, G, C. I guess these are the original harmonies he wrote. I met a Jazz pianist who said don’t do that, and played Abmaj7, G7sus, Cmaj7. That first chord made all the difference to me, and I’ve never gone back to the Cminor. Just to show off he said if I insist on starting on minor then open with Dmim7b5, G7sus, C instead. Whatever way you look at it, those two options do sound more interesting than the Cminor.

My dad told me about how he bought his original book out of the back of a van in the 70s and it’s still crazy to think about

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds flat keys oddly easier than sharp keys

Huh, I had no idea of its legal status…interesting…lol. As a choral director whose traditional piano skills have always been somewhat lacking, I managed to become fairly competent at comping. Something about melody lines plus chord symbols were so much easier for me to work with vs standard sheet music. I think it was the freedom for interpretation. It’s the secret behind my choirs singing so many jazz standards personally arranged by me. I wasn’t the coolest cat on the block, I just found a way to make something that’s easier for me sound really good on them…lol.

This was such an interesting video! I'd love to see more jazz history on this channel 😁

It must be noted (don't know if someone else has pointed this already in the comments below, haven't read them all yet) that "Real Books" come in more than one key. There is the C version (supposedly the "correct" one) but also the Bb version, the Eb version, etc. which are usually meant for wind instruments in the said keys since they can't be tuned, whereas the C version is usually meant for the piano. Versions other than the C version have all their songs transposed from C to said key. That being said, it was interesting to learn from this video that transposition alone doesn't account for the differences between the "Real Book" (henceforth called just RB) version and the original version. I've struggled with that issue when learning Bill Evans's "34 Skidoo". The version that hooked me onto this piece was the "Montreux II" version (which has a really cool intro), whose harmony in the RB version only matches the recording in the main theme. Later on I found out the RB version I had was actually the one from the album "How My Heart Sings", but even there I notice differences in the chords between the recording and the RB.

I grew up playing classical piano and decided to take up jazz at 25 in 1993. I had to buy my Real Book from a specific guy “under the counter” at my local music store. It was a funny scene in hindsight. LOL.

One reason with music in flat keys is that it is easier to translate to brass instruments like trumpets and horn, since they are tuned in B flat or E flat.

Why you as a pianist play with so many flats is because of the transposing wind instruments. Bb instruments have two more sharps and the Eb saxes even have theree more sharps. So when you see a tune with two sharps it's five for me, and that's quite more challenging to finger ^^

The thing about the flats and sharps is that the brass / some woodwinds are instruments in a flat key. So the play with an instrument in C, your average clarinetist will add 2 sharps. So, if you play F, Bb or Eb, we just have 1 sharp, no sharps/flats or 1 flat. Great! For some sax players with Eb, this is even more the case. I don't think many instruments in a typical jazz combo are in a sharp key. (Edit: also, on the piano, those black keys are relatively easy to hit, so win-win?)

Re other musicians knowing if you learned a tune from the book and not from recordings: In college (~1994) everyone seemed to play There Will Never Be Another You. There was one bar (maybe #10) that gave away whether you’d learned it from albums or just read the book. BTW the original has a beautiful verse/intro; it’s from a 1942 movie musical called Iceland, a romcom about skaters.

I absolutely adore Gershwin, and it was so cool to see someone else raving about the beauty of his music. Made my day. Thank you!

The Berklee Bible. I bought one from behind the Counter at a Kinkos in Boston in Fall 1979. Those were the days.

That’s super interesting to hear the preference for flat keys is a jazz pianist thing too. I’ve played almost exclusively classical pieces (especially romantic era) my whole life, and most of my life I felt like flat key pieces were much easier to both read and learn. Lifelong friend who also plays feels the same way. Now, though I feel relatively comfortable with each, though flat keys still feel more “intuitive”. Oddly, I think just because my all-time favorite pieces tend to be in keys with 5-6 accidentals, I feel most uncomfortable in keys with only 1-2.

The reason why we perceive flats to be easier, is because of school band programs starting us in B-flat, F, E flat.

I remember when you had to get on a subway out to the most distant part of Brooklyn to score a real book. Seriously. 80s.

as a guitar player and Someone who plays metal music, Metal musicians really like working with Sharps over flats. It's very typical that we will use them. The reason being is because we will play keys in the tunings of the guitar/Bass. So Typical keys we will play would be E, D, C, A, B and G. Depending on how many strings you have. What the lowest note is, will be the key of the song that will be wrote.