So what, exactly, is a Fake Book?

Let's start with this question: What is a song? Legally speaking, at least for pop music, a song is made up of melody, lyrics, and harmony. When Steely Dan, or any musician, wants to copyright a song, a lead sheet is submitted to convey the lyrics, melody, and harmony of that song. Likewise, when a song is a candidate for a Grammy or an Academy Award, it is actually the lead sheet of the song that is up for the award.

Here's an example of a lead sheet:

There are lyrics, there is a transcribed melody, and there are chord shapes noted above the lines to convey the harmony. For most musicians, this is enough to play the song. Indeed, this piece of paper, or something similar, is what a musician would likely use during a session recording or tracking a song.

But for ease of use, the transcribed melody is often left out, with just the lyrics and the chord names remaining. This works because if I'm looking for a song, I probably already know the melody, or at the very least can work it out based on the scales corresponding to the chords used.

G D

Happy birthday to you,

D7 G

Happy birthday to you,

C

Happy birthday, dear NAME,

G D7 G

Happy birthday to you.

Of course, there are also scores, which give the musical notation for multiple instruments, including notated harmony in bass and treble clefs.

And you might even occasionally see something that looks like this:

  v   v   v   v     v   v   v   v     v   v   v   v     v   v   v   v
|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|
|---3-------------|-----------------|---3-------------|-----------------|
|-------6-------3-|---4-------------|-------6-------3-|-----------2-----|
|-2-----4-------1-|---2-------------|-2-----4-------1-|-------4---0-----|
|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|-------2---------|
|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|



                   C/F     F#7#9     D/G   Fsus2/Ab

  v   v   v   v     v   v   v   v     v   v   v   v   
|-----------------|---------5-------|-2-----3---------|
|-----------------|-5---------------|-----------------|
|----2--1-0-----4-|-----------------|-----------------|
|-2----------4----|-----------------|-----------------|
|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|
|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|
  ~~~3~~~ ~~~3~~~  
(1/4-note triplets)

(From Howard Wright's SD tablature page)

This is guitar tablature, or "tabs," which show you which finger to use on which fret of which string to play a guitar part. Reading tab and reading music are related sciences, but many musicians can only read one or the other, and not necessarily both.

The focus of this particular board is to get as close as possible on chords, leadsheets, tabs, and scoring as possible for Walter Becker's music. There are some really good sites out there that do this for Steely Dan proper, including some good (and some not so good) collections of printed sheet music available commercially. So at the moment, I don't see any need to recreate that particular wheel. What have been historically lacking are chord charts, lead sheets, tablature, etc for Walter's solo work, the songs he's written for or with other people (see Brill Building Becker), and songs from Becker/Fagen's Furry Years, as well as unreleased SD era tracks like Sacajawea and The Bear, etc. If you aren't familiar with The Furry Years, read Walter's own explanation here, but suffice it to say that these are the "Pre-Dan" tracks that pop up on various releases seemingly every other week.

So that's it. You're invited to use these to make music, you're invited to offer your own chord charts, tabs, leadsheets, etc. You're invited to offer corrections or thoughts about particular chord voicings, or whatever. And hey, if you record yourself playing one of these, let us know. It's all real here.