Queen The Complete Chord Songbook, Softback

[QUOTE] [b]Machines or back to Machines wrote:[/b]

Why is it fake?[/QUOTE]

Oh. It's just a TERM. Doesn't mean inauthentic.

In general people playing "standards" in a night club, jazz and old school would have "fake books" consisting of several hundred titles virtually condensed into 3-10 lines or condensed measures which would only give guide chords and vocal melodies. No lyrics usually but sometimes if they did they'd have a bit and then "dot dot dot"

I'm not certain why they're called fake books, I just know they are and I have a few for old standards.

You'll just see something along the lines of D#9, D13, etc above the bars and the usual time meter and keys.

Those are useful for seasoned players and improvisers. Not so much for beginners unless they're playing a ukulele or intend to merely strum the accompaniment.

[QUOTE] [b]Machines or back to Machines wrote:[/b]

Lol, clearly a bitter chap who can't help but discourage people, shame.[/QUOTE]

Here's a word of advice: if you don't undestand what people are talking about, shut up and listen. You might learn something.

[QUOTE] [b]matt z wrote:[/b]

^useful to a piano player or amateur guitarist. ... and oddly enough useful to a PROFESSIONAL MUSICIAN as a fake book for a cover band ("they'll figure it out")[/QUOTE]

The point is, if you're going to make an arrangement, you'll need the melody/melodies. If you just get lyrics and chords, no melodies, you have to transcribe the melodies by ear. Once you've done the transcription of the melody, figuring out the chords is rarely difficult, except in extremely harmonically complex/ambiguous pieces. So you'll gain precious little from this book.

I've never seen a fake book that didn't have melodies, and I don't see how one that doesn't would be remotely useful.

So no one has seen the Beatles complete chord book, or the little black songbooks, all perfect who want to strum or play piano, I don't see the big issue.

[QUOTE] [b]Machines or back to Machines wrote:[/b]

So no one has seen the Beatles complete chord book, or the little black songbooks, all perfect who want to strum or play piano, I don't see the big issue.[/QUOTE]

No, you're quite right. I'm on your side with this one. These things are aimed at people who are familiar enough with the songs that they can sing the melody, but aren't musically adept enough, or bothered enough to figure out the chords. If you have good pitch, singing the melody to a song you're familiar with comes naturally and immediately, whereas figuring out the chords can be somewhat more time consuming and demanding of thought.

With Queen songs, especially, there's loads of chords which many wouldn't be able to pick out so easily. I certainly couldn't play Bo Rhap just by listening to it in the way that I could do so with most Beatle tracks, for instance.

Funny you mentioned the little black songbooks - I own both the Beatle one and the Queen one. There's a few errors, both lyrically and chordally, but they've been really useful to me overall - much more accurate than anything on Ultimate Guitar, for the most part.

Exactly, I love the little songbooks , really handy and gives you what want , this Queen complete book is amazing and long over due.

[QUOTE] [b]tomchristie22 wrote:[/b]

If you have good pitch, singing the melody to a song you're familiar with comes naturally and immediately, whereas figuring out the chords can be somewhat more time consuming and demanding of thought.
. [/QUOTE]

I agree.

I personally would never buy "sheet music" with just chords and lyrics. The sheet that I would buy are those that contain notes of the original piano track, original guitar track and vocal track (or close to original). But this scores are rare and even this scores are not completely accurate, you will always find few mistakes.

I can agree that chords and lyrics can be useful for people who can naturally sing in tune any Queen song but they just don't know the chords to play on instrument (guitar mostly if you want just chords and nothing else) BUT why would somebody pay for it if you can get chords for any Queen song for FREE on Google: chords, notes and also many MIDIs.

As far as "fake book" is concerned...I believe fake book is a term for scores/sheet music that are not 100 % accurate/original (note by note), especially the piano and guitar track. Fake book gives you just basic skeleton of the song (basic catchy melody and basic chords). Non-fake book sheet music for Queen songs are extremely rare, because you will always find few "mistakes" (not original). If you really want 100 % accurate scores you basically need to have a very good ear, listen to all of the multiple tracks separately and create your own original sheet for each instrument separately, then you can say that you have non-fake book. Original scores are very rare and the sheet music that you buy are anything but the real track – in 99 % they are inaccurate (even buying PRO sheet that are the best you can get are not completely accurate). I guess this is also one of the differences between classical music and popular music: for classical music you will always see the original score for Mozart, Beethoven, Bach etc., but you will almost never see original score for popular music (that's why we call it "fake"). Reason is very simple: the goal of classical music was to spread the music in form of scores, the goal of popular music was/is to spread/sell music in form of audio recording...

In my opinion there`s too much moaning about this book. You get a all Queen Songs for about 20 bucks....it`s alright to play these by the camp fire or for starters who will get a taste of Queen`s music.