A ''fake book'' is a book of music which contains only the tune or
melody of a song and the chords which go with it, written
above the
melody line (which is written in ordinary musical notation) in letter/number form (e.g., C, D#, F9, etc.) With these conventions, the authors are able to compress an extraordinary number of songs into one volume--in this cast over 1000 popular songs in 860 medium sized pages (approximately 6 x 9).
At the front of the book is an index of songs
alphabetically by title (although the songs are also listed, for the most part, alphabetically by title in the main part of the book). This is followed by an index of songs by type and/or decade of popularity, again alphabetically by title within each category. These categories are as follows:
Blues/Dixieland/Jazz
Broadway Show Tunes
Children''s Songs
Christmas/Inspirational
College
Country
Hits of the Big Band Era
Hits of the 1950s
Hits of the 1960s
Hits of the 1970s
Hits of the 1980s
Hits of the 1990s
Latin
Marches and Polkas
Movie and TV Themes
Novelty Songs
Singalongs
Songs in 3/4 Time.
In addition, each song has listed the author/s of the lyrics, the composer/s of the music (where these are known), and copyright information. It is a musician''s or singer''s dream book.