Lead sheets in Fakebooks
A lead sheet refers to notes that only consist of the melody (possibly with the lyrics) and chord symbols.
Collections of such lead sheets are called fake books. Ironically, the most important fake book in jazz is known as the Real Book.
Fakebooks
Manage fake books
Load a few hundred songs quickly
If you're into jazz or pop/rock, then you probably also use fake books. Simply assign a PDF to one of the 90+ preinstalled table of contents and you're ready to use it at your gig or next session.
It's important to us that Calypso not only knows the song titles, but also the composers and lyricists of a song. That's because how we pay tribute to creative minds like Cole Porter or John Lennon. They have all given us so much wealth with their compositions.
Just find a song
Because Calypso knows the composers, you can display a list of all known songs written by Cole Porter. Select one from there.
It goes without saying that you can search specifically for a song title.
If a song is included in several fake books, you can choose the version with the best notation or the key you want. Calypso remembers your preferred version.
Find a song
Set lists
For your performances
… you put the songs together in set lists, in the exact order you want and from which fake book. With it you can go to the next song on stage with one tap.
You can name sets and you can determine and change the order of the sets.
And you can collapse sets so only use the relevant ones. It sounds complicated at first, because you weren't used to it with your paper sheet music. But it makes sense and is very simple in the end.
You send your friends the set lists via email or AirDrop, and if you want, the sheet music or lead sheets as well.
Audio
Always have an audio recording ready
Do you feel the same? Many musicians like to listen to the recordings of their great role models to go with a song. That's why it was important to us that you always have quick access to your mp3 files. With any song that matters to you.
Calypso assigns these audio files to the compositions. That's why it doesn't matter which fake book you read the sheet music from.
It is practical that you can change the pitch and the playback tempo. With these settings, you can even export the audio recording and make it available to your fellow musicians or students.
Play-a-long
Learn the jazz
Calypso also knows the contents of over 100 Aebersolds. These are the lead sheet collections with professionally created backing tracks to play along with.
Assign your PDFs to the Aebersold entries. Then associate the play-a-long files with the appropriate songs. Now you can learn jazz like legions of musicians have been doing for decades.
The audio recordings of your great role models from the fake books are of course also available with the standards of the Aebersold series.
If you have other play-a-longs, e.g. the Hal Leonard series, then create your own table of contents for the PDFs. It only takes a few minutes because Calypso supports you with its database knowledge.
Turn pages
Turn pages while playing
You play your instrument with your hands. To scroll to the next page, you can use a Bluetooth footswitch. This is comparable to turning the pages of your paper notes.
Calypso offers you another option with Fakebooks. This uses predefined full and half page layouts of the pages of a song. You decide which page(s) should be displayed. And you determine which section of a page should be visible. Then when you scroll, Calypso takes over the animation to the next layout.
You can also use this to arrange notes spread across two pages in a way that achieves natural reading.
Annotations
Notes must be
What you used to write in your notes with a pencil, you now do with an Apple Pencil. You can also use your finger, just not with the same precision.
Calypso opens up many more possibilities for you. For example, you have music symbols that make your sheet music look like printed music. You can create four predefined text styles for entering text.
You make changes without the infamous eraser.
Metronome ✦ Tuner ✦ Keyboard
Sometimes it's the little things that make the difference.
A metronome is essential when it comes to checking your timing.
Even if a pianist or a drummer does not need a tuner, a fellow musician will be happy if you can help out with one.
Of course, a virtual keyboard does not convey the same playing feel as an instrument with keys. It's still fun though, especially when you can expand it with your own sound library.
What other people say
“OK, I’ll get it right out there: I love this app. I’ve been using over a number of years and it just gets better and better. Whilst a lot of people love the Fakebooks, for me it is the automatic/semi-automatic page turning that is just so brilliant.”
— App Store UK (RobinBobbin99)
“Excellent - Awesome - Genious - Super Versatile - Continuosly improving - Needs a bit home work to take all cool features in action, but really worth it - Utmoust enduser dedicated creator - Everyone should have a try.”
— App Store (Ville Finland)