Piano Sheet Music

Many PSR-2100/2000 owners enjoy "playing by ear."  Others rely on sheet music to learn and play songs.  There are many different kinds of sheet music available.  If you can play the piano, you may already have plenty of "piano" music available (a popular format for many songbooks).  Piano music shows both a treble and bass clef, and what to do with your right and your left hands.  Sometimes, you will see chord notation (not always).  The notes played with the left and right hands often combine to produce the chord used in the song.  However, piano-style music notation is not ideal for arranger keyboard players. 

Fake Books

Knowing chords is critical to playing an arranger keyboard.  The right hand plays the melody.  The left hand plays the chords (even if only the one-finger variety).  So, the music notation should clearly specify what chord is needed as the melody moves along. 

"Fake books" provide an excellent form of musical notation for arranger keyboards. Fake Books are massive collections of songs with a notated melody line, chord symbols, and complete lyrics (see sample line below). These books are the mainstay of professional musicians, and once you've learned how to use a fake book, you'll enjoy a new level of playing experience.  The expression, "fake book," comes from the fact that the music generally shows the melody, chords, and lyrics, but that's all.  The musician has to "fake it" from there.  In the case of an arranger keyboard, you have a lot of help.  You simply play the correct "chord" and the accompaniment styles provide a lot of "faking" for you.  All you have left to do is to play the melody with your right hand.

Finding a Fake Book

You can generally find a fake book in your local music store. You'll also find them in the larger bookstores. These books, however, fill a relatively narrow market niche, so you're not likely to find a large selection of fake books in any one store.  You can always order fake books from an online supplier such as Barnes & Noble or Amazon.  The book links provided here will generally take you to Barnes & Noble, which has the largest selection available.  The links on the left-hand side of the page will take you to Amazon if you want to compare prices.  Fake books do go out of print. If you check B&N Used books or http://www.eBay.com, you may find some used bargains.  And, of course, don't forget your local library.  If you've never seen a fake book, you may be able to check one out at the libary and see whether or not these books are for you.

Our Listings

In this section, I have compiled a list of most of the more popular fake books on the U.S. market.  Hal Leonard publishes most of them.  A few are published by Sher Music and by Warner Brothers Music.  I have divided the books into various categories to help you find the kind of book that best suits you.  

• Giants -- All of these are huge books with over 1,000 songs from a wide variety of Genres. If you only have one book, one of these can keep you happily occupied with new songs for a long time.
• Standards -- Large and small collections of the "standards" -  Jazz, Swing, Broadway.  Older audiences will recognize most of these.
• Jazz -- Jazz fans will find some of their favorites in these collections. Many "standards" will also be found in some of these Jazz books.
• Broadway -- This categories includes songs made popular through shows, Broadway shows, Movies, and TV shows
• Rock -- Rock and Rock&Roll fans will find their favorites in these books. .
• PopRock/R&B -- This group contains selections that may hold the new "standards."  It includes soft rock, blues, rhythm & blues, and pop rock.
• Country -- Country music has become very popular in the US. Here are some books for the country music fans.
• International -- International, that is, from a US perspective.  Look here for Latin fake books, Celtic, International favorites, and Classical.
• Christmas -- There are several Christmas fake books available so I put these in a category by themselves. Lots of great tunes, but usually popular only during one month of the year.
• Christian/Jewish -- Here you'll find Hymns, Gospels, Christian songs and Jewish songs..
• Chord Changes -- Want to add a newer, more modern feeling to some of your sounds.  Try out these fake books that provide suggested alternative chords you can try on these various popular standards.
• Little Books -- All of these books are 6 x 9 inches, considerably smaller than the standard 9 x 12 inch size of the other books. Easy to carry and transport, but small print and harder to read.
• Easy Series -- If you are completely new to music and music reading, you may want to consider starting with a book from the Easy Fake Book series, which feature large musical notation, simple melodies and harmonies, and are written in the key of C.
• How To -- These books are tutorials that teach you how to play from a fake book.  You'll also find some to help you with sight reading and music in general.

Category Contents

In each category, you'll find a small picture of the book, a brief description, the number of pages, the number of songs in the book, and the suggested retail price.  Hal Leonard Publications has many fake books available and provides the song list for their books online.  Clicking on the Table of Contents link will take you directly to the corresponding song list (so you can see what songs are included in the book).

Finding a Song

While you can see a list of the songs in most fake books by following the link to the Table of Contents, sometimes you are more interested in a particular song and want to find the books in which that song can be found.  You will find an index to all the songs in 55 of these books in the "Song Index" section.  Since this includes over 10,000 song titles, songs are on individual alphabetical pages.

Book Purchases

The book picture and the book title are linked to Barnes & Noble, where you can find the B&N price for this volume and order it if you like.  I selected B&N because I wanted you to have the largest selection of fake books available. Amazon also carries fake books, although not as many. There is a general link to Amazon on the side of each page.  If you order your book(s) via either of these links, psrtutorial will get some benefit. (In time, I may be able to purchase another fake book or two). Check out HAL LEONARD BOOKS at Musicians Friend.