Fake Books

Although much of this site is focused on helping PSR-2x00 owners, there are elements that are useful, not only to PSR-2x000 owners, but to any musician.  I've put many of those resources in this section.

Fake Books - For those players who learn their songs from sheet music, the Fake Books section is an invaluable resource, particularly for arranger keyboard players.  A "Fake Book" provides the melody line, the chords, and the lyrics of a song.  The player must make up all other elements of the arrangement, that is, he/she has to "fake it."  However, I feel that, for an arranger artist, the fake book provides everything needed.  Your left hand plays the chords; your right hand plays the melody; if you use a mic, you yourself sing the lyrics; and the PSR-2100 does the rest of the job of "faking it."  In this section you find brief descriptions of all the fake books in the US market. There are also links to a detailed table of contents and links to Barnes & Noble if you want to purchase the book.  For many of the books, there is also a link to a Music Finder Database file (PSR-2000) for that particular book.

Fake Book Song Index - If you do play from fake books, as I do, you may have an extensive collection.  These books can have many hundreds of songs, but if you're looking for that one particular song, how do you find it?  Well, you just check the Fake Book Song Index.  This section contains a listing of over 12,000 songs, taken from 55 different fake books.  For each song, there is a list of all of the books in which this song appears.  Songs are listed, alphabetically, by page, that is, all of the "A" songs -- songs that start with the letter "A" -- are on one page, the "B" songs on another page, etc. If you'd like this resource available all the time, there is even a large Microsoft Word document that you can download from which you can print a 60+ page document for yourself.

Top Songs - Look here for a list of top songs as measured by a variety of yard sticks -- Top 40 hits each year, Top songs of the year, Top songs of the Century, Top Country Songs, Top Christmas songs, plus links to additional top song internet sites.

Pro Clinic - Here are a series of "discussions" from the "pros" at the Synth Zone General Arranger Forum that deal with questions any current or prospective entertiner would be interested in -- How do you pace your performance? What should you charge? How to Read an Audience? How many styles do you really need? Should you sit or stand for a performance? etc.

Articles - Although we have "lessons" on using your PSR-2000/2100, we do not really attempt to provide a musical education or training here.  Nonetheless, here are some tips that are provided for new (or not so new) players. The articles here cover not only music but also other topics of interest to PSR owners, such as how to replace your floppy disk drive and how to build a super-strong music rack.

Music Lessons - While there are not a lot of "music lessons" on this site, that doesn't mean music lessons aren't available elsewhere on other internet sites or on videos or CDs you can purchase.  This page provides a number of links to internet resources available for those who want to enhance their musical training..

Chord Secrets - While we don't teach much music, learning chords is critical to someone who wants to master an arranger keyboard.  I found an excellent series of lessons on learning the "Secrets of Chord Progressions" authored by noted pianist Duane Shinn.  Duane provides the lessons through a "free" newsletter service with a new lesson each week.  He has agreed that psrtutorial can carry the lessons on our site as well.  There are 39 lessons in the complete series. Believe me, if you work through these lessons, doing the recommended exercises, your playing will improve tremendously.