Skip to main content

The Real Book

How you use it is up to you!

The Real book is not gospel, there are some songs that you just do not play as-is, this is especially true for songs that are packed with crotchets / quarters. If you just play them as-is you will not have good time, you must learn to rubato and phrase!

You can either try to play the song first... or listen first! Sometimes you will notice your search result is nothing like the song in the real book.. this is because the real book song sometimes start in the middle! what happens before is a "verse".

An example of this is "I got it bad" by Duke Ellington

  • Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFi8VE5Y8bI"
    • Notice the leadsheet "song" starts at 1:05 instead!
    • Another thing to notice is the rubato. Although the rhythm is not set in stone, the start and end are on point!

IRealPro​

Basically a band in a box. You will probably want to tune irealpro to play in your pitch!

The transposing instrument option doesn't really do anything, it just changes the display.

When you change the transposing instrument option, the key option doesn't change, it stays as concert!

  • So if you are playing alto saxophone, you pitch will be up by minor third, so irealpro must also go up by minor third!
  • A song in C will should be set to Eb.