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Icelander53

Icelander53

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I just got from Amazon today, UKULELE Fake Book Over 400 songs for strumming, with melody, lyrics, chords.

It had no ratings yet so I'm assuming it's new. They have two versions and the large format is perfect. They even worked hard on making sure you don't have to turn pages while playing a song. It also is plastic spiral bound so it lays flat and stays put. Lots of great songs. IMO a very nice and well thought out fake book. (just looked at it again on amazon and now there are several reviews.)



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1495003701/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

also got this one but it's not here yet.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1423465725/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The reason I bought the fake book is that I'm a survivalist. I took wilderness survival courses and it's my nature to be prepared for any event. I expect an economic collapse any time now and loss of basic services. So I make sure my songs aren't all on the computer and that my amps run on battery. So...:p
 
Thanks for the heads up and info on these.

I have added them to my wishlist since I already have the Daily Ukulele books and some of the songs overlap, but in the event that there is a collapse and we are all cut off from UU (in an apocalyptic event-but I hope not), I am going to need some way to stave off the boredom and loneliness once isolated from this forum (and others).

When Hurricaine Sandy hit NJ in Oct 2012, it was before my uke-life started, but we had no power and no internet for 2 weeks, but was prepared otherwise in many ways (we were fine for food, water, candles and charging cel phones via solar panel),, but no internet at all (most all of NY/NJ/CT was down for power/phone/internet/cableTV), and during the day, practicing my guitar was the only way to hold on to any of my sanity.

It was kind of like 'camping at home' and very much 'back to basics', not exactly fun but being prepared made it a lot less stressful.

Anyway, yes, I too much prefer to have the dead tree version of things and often am uncomfortable keeping so many things in an electronic format, so having the actual sheet music is a big plus. Otherwise, you can also just get a case of printer paper and print out all your downloaded music and put those sheets in a binder (something I've got to do myself soon).
 
The book is really good I got mine awhile ago before they came out with the full size edition I preordered it and it took them forever,the release was delayed several months but was well worth the wait.
 
Thanks for the heads up...............looks like a great book. abebooks.com has it listed for $19.46 plus $3.99 shipping ($23.45)
 
Booli said:
Thanks for the heads up and info on these.

I have added them to my wishlist since I already have the Daily Ukulele books and some of the songs overlap, but in the event that there is a collapse and we are all cut off from UU (in an apocalyptic event-but I hope not), I am going to need some way to stave off the boredom and loneliness once isolated from this forum (and others).

When Hurricaine Sandy hit NJ in Oct 2012, it was before my uke-life started, but we had no power and no internet for 2 weeks, but was prepared otherwise in many ways (we were fine for food, water, candles and charging cel phones via solar panel),, but no internet at all (most all of NY/NJ/CT was down for power/phone/internet/cableTV), and during the day, practicing my guitar was the only way to hold on to any of my sanity.

It was kind of like 'camping at home' and very much 'back to basics', not exactly fun but being prepared made it a lot less stressful.

Anyway, yes, I too much prefer to have the dead tree version of things and often am uncomfortable keeping so many things in an electronic format, so having the actual sheet music is a big plus. Otherwise, you can also just get a case of printer paper and print out all your downloaded music and put those sheets in a binder (something I've got to do myself soon).
Click to expand...

Yes I do the printer binder thing too. I just wanted a big stash of songs I haven't picked out myself. My only objection to this book and it's a good one is that (and I find this with all hal leonard song books is some of the chords just don't work in the song. I know many of these songs very well and have sang along and listened to them many times and they got it wrong. Which is weird considering the resources they have. Anyway most of the songs are well done and a very good list for the most part.

If things ever do collapse to some degree then I'll be camping right here too. I have enough survival gear to outfit several people. I'll be choosing carefully. They better be musicians.
 
I have the fakebook that the OP mentioned. I got it at Guitar Center a few months ago. There is a matching Christmas fakebook that is a bit over 400 pages. I got that at the same place a week or two earlier. These are small and quite handy. Between these two, you pretty much have it covered.

As to the Big Collapse, all I know is that there are people making serious money touting it. An analogy I use is that here in Minnesota, if the weather reporters continually predict snow, eventually it will happen and then even if it was 6 months before the event, they can holler how accurate they were. We can't, unfortunately, control the government even though that was part of the original intention. We can control our own spending. If there is a collapse, I would not want to be caught with a mortgage, credit debt, car or student loans, etc. That is something we can control, as well as the usual stocking up on food and flashlights, etc.

Tony
 
I have the smaller version of the Fake Book. The size is a bit tiny for my ever-aging eyes, but the portability is nice. I will say that some of the arrangements are a bit more challenging than the same songs in the Daily Ukulele. For a beginner player like myself, I simply gave up on some from the Fake Book. I still play out of Daily Ukulele a lot more.

There are a TON of songs though. And if the price drops a bit, I'll get the large version.
 
Collapse: If it happens, it happens, but it's been predicted for many decades now, and it ain't happened yet. Robert Reich used to joke about how he foresaw the crash of '87. He predicted it on TV talk shows every week for twelve years, and eventually he was right. Hey, I have a prophesy for you: YOU ARE GONNA DIE! Just don't ask me when, okay? I'll probably be right, eventually.

I bought a Daily Ukulele book a few weeks ago -- and took it back the next day. Too many songs were incomplete. Many pre-Rock-n-Roll-era pop songs have introductions and verses that are neglected, abridged, so we hear (and see scores for) only the chorus. The song Blue Skies begins "I was blue, just as blue as I could be" but I never see that nor its other verse in compilation books. If I'm going to pay money for a songbook, I want the whole damn thing, not just cherrypicked portions of tunes.

Sure, you can just jump into a familiar tune. But it's like lovemaking without foreplay. Bend over and smile, hey? No buildup, no subtlety, no mystery. A song's obscure intro is foreplay; it leads the audience to wonder, "What's this?" and entices them to lean in and engage mentally. Then the familiarity arrives, and the head-nodding and toe-tapping. The experience is richer. The payoff is bigger. What a rush! Was it good for you, baby? ;)

So, this fake book. Are the songs complete or abridged?
 
Some tunes have an intro, many do not. Of those that have an intro, it may be rather short. I have several fakebooks, dating back to the original Real Book. The intent of the fakebook is to provide the verse, chorus, bridge in a very short form. It is up to the player to add his or her own intro and ending, leaving a lot of room for your own way to play the tune. There are a number of "standard" ways to quickly come up with an intro and also an ending. Usually, you would take a part of the verse that leads nicely into the start of the tune (i.e. the intro could end on the V7 if the song starts on the I, as an example). The ending could be the 4 measures repeated and fade or a part of the bridge, for example.

Tony
 
This book looks like it focuses a little more on the contemporary era than the Daily Uke books.

But having bought both of the Daily Uke books, I don't really feel the need to buy yet another "all purpose" songbook.

The meetups I go to sometimes provide handouts, or at least post PDFs for people to download/print ahead of time.

But it does look like it has some good stuff. :)
 
k0k0peli said:
Collapse: If it happens, it happens, but it's been predicted for many decades now, and it ain't happened yet. Robert Reich used to joke about how he foresaw the crash of '87. He predicted it on TV talk shows every week for twelve years, and eventually he was right. Hey, I have a prophesy for you: YOU ARE GONNA DIE! Just don't ask me when, okay? I'll probably be right, eventually.

I bought a Daily Ukulele book a few weeks ago -- and took it back the next day. Too many songs were incomplete. Many pre-Rock-n-Roll-era pop songs have introductions and verses that are neglected, abridged, so we hear (and see scores for) only the chorus. The song Blue Skies begins "I was blue, just as blue as I could be" but I never see that nor its other verse in compilation books. If I'm going to pay money for a songbook, I want the whole damn thing, not just cherrypicked portions of tunes.

Sure, you can just jump into a familiar tune. But it's like lovemaking without foreplay. Bend over and smile, hey? No buildup, no subtlety, no mystery. A song's obscure intro is foreplay; it leads the audience to wonder, "What's this?" and entices them to lean in and engage mentally. Then the familiarity arrives, and the head-nodding and toe-tapping. The experience is richer. The payoff is bigger. What a rush! Was it good for you, baby? ;)

So, this fake book. Are the songs complete or abridged?
Click to expand...

The songs seem fairly complete to me. YOu can check them out on Amazon by opening the book and looking inside. See for yourself.

I've been through all the past "collapses" also. I wasn't buying until I realized what shape our oceans are really in etc. It's the environmental collapse that will bring down the rest. I'm now convinced by what is apparent.

And imo it's down right silly not to be prepared just because it hasn't happened here yet. That's what history books are for. It always happens.
 
Bill1 said:
If you want to be really prepared, make sure each uke case has spare string sets and you copy say 20 - 40 tunes using double side, two pages to a page, and put them in the case as well. If you don't have a lot of time and need to travel, you will not be carrying several kgs of books and might just be able to grab one uke in a case. Of course if you can stay put at home, the books would be useful. Also learn a notation like ABC so you can easily copy out tunes from available sources into your notebook when there is no copier.
I think I vaguely recall Jim Beloff saying that his books, like the daily books, are meant as memory aides. They have the simplest chords and melodies. You are supposed to add your own more complex chords and intros and outros. Maybe a true fakebook is different to this concept and has a complete transcript of a version of a tune, or maybe it is also just a memory aide to get you started? Most tunes have many versions, which wont all fit in one book.
While you have access to power and copiers, make some copies and edit in better more colourful chords and verses and intros and outros with a pencil. When there is no power left, scrounge clean paper and write out the tunes in your own arrangement.
Click to expand...

Fakebooks are intended to fit as many tunes into as small a space as possible. You are given the melody and the chords written as letters above the melody, and that is it. It is up to the musician to have the musical vocabulary to create chord voicings, intros, endings, and whatever styling s/he wants when presenting the tune.

The name "fakebook" originated from the idea that a "real" musician played very note of a completely written out performance, such as is the case with big band or classical music. Anyone that played stuff that was not written out ahead of time was considered to be "faking it".

To me, that is ironic because (again, to me), music is about self-expression. Just as in conversation verbally, so it would be in music. I really would not want to spend my day reciting what had been written by somebody else for me to say that day, and so it is for me with music. Others may disagree, but for me, having to maintain a repertoire of every note being what somebody else wrote and I just recite, would take all the fun out of it.

Tony
 
I think faking it is a good way to go. I've been doing it all my life and I suspect most of the rest humanity is too.
 
Icelander53 said:
[...] So I make sure my songs aren't all on the computer and that my amps run on battery. So...:p
Click to expand...

Batteries? You expect there to be supplies of batteries following an economic collapse? They'll be more precious than crack. Imagine hordes of teenagers having to revert to Walkmans to feed their habit. It won't be pretty, but us acoustic players will rise again!
 
I have a huge frozen stash of batteries and solar battery chargers also with nicads. My amp is acoustic so you can relax. lol

I also have a big stash of alcohol and cigs etc. for barter. I'll eat and play uke and they can get drunk. Rest assured that my ass is covered many times over. I'm not a survival slouch. But the reality is I'm old and dying so I'm not worried about the future too much. I'm ready for it.

I won't go into more detail on my feeling of this subject cause I don't want to upset anyone.
This is a uke site. I'm sure there are plenty of end of the world forums to peruse.
 
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I have that book and I don't like it very much. The chords are not as well thought out as the Daily Uke Books. And a lot of the songs are just wrong. But there is so much available on the Internet I really don't see the purpose of it any more. The only reason I use the Daily Uke Books is because clubs use them.
 
I agree that some of the chords are off on a few of the songs. But I still want some song books here if the computer goes down. (most people think something like that could never happen)

I'll take a look at the daily uke books. My problem is often I'm not into most of the songs in these books. I found plenty in this one worth playing and I can fix the song if it's just a couple of chords that are not working. I can do that much.
 
Icelander53 said:
I have a huge frozen stash of batteries and solar battery chargers also with nicads. My amp is acoustic so you can relax. lol

I also have a big stash of alcohol and cigs etc. for barter. I'll eat and play uke and they can get drunk. Rest assured that my ass is covered many times over. I'm not a survival slouch. But the reality is I'm old and dying so I'm not worried about the future too much. I'm ready for it.

I won't go into more detail on my feeling of this subject cause I don't want to upset anyone.
This is a uke site. I'm sure there are plenty of end of the world forums to peruse.
Click to expand...

Beer, bait and ammo............the currency of the future?
 
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