my real “books” collection is actually a set of PDFS which I bought ~25 years ago from an ebay seller. some of the books in the set are pretty rubbish in terms of readability, but the beauty of the package is the alphabetical index. i can see at a glance what books a tune is in, and on what page(s)
I open the index pdf in adobe, then click on any song and it will open the relevant rel pdf at the correct page - awesome.
but, as I say, its a very old set, so I’m wondering if there are any better, newer indexed collections.
mine is called " the real index v 1.15 "
( i never got the "open the associated file at correct page "trick to work in android pdf readers, but on windows its fine
the most readable print quality scores, for my eyesight are in the NEWREAL books.
I am not enough of a scholar to comment on which have the most accurate changes, I just go with the one I like the sound of…
I use an online index from seventhstring (the company that sells Transcribe!). It’s comprehensive, easy to use, and the only downside is that it really shows how confusing the different series of real books are.
layout wise, That looks like mine, except that in mind I can click any entry to open the linked book. So mine must have actual file names encoded in it and my real books have to be in same folder as the index. I probably have ~20 linked books but only a few are useful. Fonts and layout are awful in the lesser known ones, which are probably long out of print
seems that mine is 2014 _ i thought i 'd had it for much longer…
Front 00index_v1.15.pdf (1.9 MB)
page follows: in my experience , from this list, only the real & new real series are worth having… & the original real books are harder to read - they use a more handwritten style which my eyes struggle with, at music stand range.
PS invest in the spiral bound ones if you plan to use paper copes…
[ i can’t use paper , because my pet birds steal and shred it. I extract songs using print (Current page) to pdf, then save as individual tunes, to make them easier to find
The Real IndexTM
(v1.15, March 2014)
All the Real Books referred to in the Real Index were regenerated from pre-existing
PDF files. The regenerated versions include page references, so the Real Index contains
working links to the actual pages. The Real Index is accurate for the original versions
of the files, too, but the links won’t work if you don’t have the regenerated, repaginated
PDF files. You can check if you have the regenerated version of a Real Book by looking
at the PDF info: if the title says “repaginated,” you’re all set!
The Real Book (5th edition, classic) RealBk1
The Real Book (6th edition, revised) RealBk1B
The Real Book, vol. 2 RealBk2
The Real Book, vol. 3 RealBk3
The Real Book, vol. 4 RealBk4
The New Real Book (complete, fixed) NewReal1
The New Real Book, vol. 2 NewReal2
The New Real Book, vol. 3 NewReal3
Jazz Fakebook JazzFake
Jazz LTD JazzLTD
The Colorado Cookbook Colorado
Library of Musicians’ Jazz Library
Bill Evans Fake Book EvansBk
The Book TheBook
The Real Vocal Book VocalBk
The World’s Greatest Fake Book Greatest
The Real Easy Book (Level 1) RealEasy1
The Real Easy Book (Level 2) RealEasy2
Contemporary Adventures in Jazz, vol. 4 ContAdv4
The All-Jazz Real Book AllJazz
The Standards Real Book StdReal
The Monster Fake Book 1 (Monster One) Monster1
The Great Gig Book (Blue Book) GreatGig
The Miles Davis Real Book (2003) MilesDavis
I have to manually cross reference the page number.
- even without pet birds my printed-off copies seem to get lost and tattered!
I do have a few spiral bound copies but they are a nightmare to lug around.
Like yourself I find the electronic versions much better and I extract the individual sheets I am working on by saving as PDF, or opening the “thumbnail view” of the main PDF file and dragging the desired sheet to my desktop to get the single sheet by itself.
I purchased Igigbook for $15 6 or 7 years ago. If you have the electronic books it offers at no extra charge, many indexes into these. I have indexed 50 books on my Ipad including all the real books etc. You poke a title and up comes the lead sheet.
It’s got its problems. Sometimes your book and the index are not in sync and adjustments have to be made. Also you can create your own book but it’s really hard to do. The worst part is there no centralized documentation.
- even without pet birds my printed-off copies seem to get lost and tattered!