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https://github.com/aspiers/book-indices

Indices for music books
https://github.com/aspiers/book-indices

fakebooks jazz leadsheets music music-library realbooks sheet-music tune

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Indices for music books

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README 

        
# Indices for jazz real / fake books



This repository is intended to be a high quality, collaboratively

edited collection of indices for well known jazz

[real](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Book) /

[fake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_book) books, rooted in the

belief that [Open Data](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data) is

often the most beneficial approach.



If you spot any mistakes or want to contribute a new index, you are

extremely welcome to do so

[right now](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-and-editing-files-in-your-repository)!



## How to use these indices



Assuming you have a PDF of a real / fake book whose contents are

described by one of these indices:



-   You can split the large PDF into many small PDF files, one per

    song, using my [PDFexploder

    tool](https://github.com/aspiers/PDFexploder).



-   Use [Birdland Musician's

    Assistant](https://birdland.wrwetzel.com/) which is a Linux-based

    multimedia music viewer and library manager for music books in PDF

    form including fakebooks.



-   Use https://github.com/neshanjo/fakebook-splitter which is based

    on NodeJS and `pdftk` so should work with Windows/Mac/Linux.



-   Use https://codeberg.org/strk/splitPDF which is very fast and

    broadly compatible ( https://perl-begin.org/platforms/ )



-   You can use this [utility for

    Windows](https://github.com/Sogolumbo/Music-Book-Index-Search)

    which provides a GUI for quickly searching the indices and jumping

    to the right page in the PDF.



-   [forScore](https://forscore.co) 10 for iPad adds [a feature that

    allows you to add indexes to large scores by uploading a CSV file

    that links the song titles to specific page numbers of the

    PDF](http://www.robbyburns.com/blog/adding-an-index-for-your-real-books-in-forscore).



If you know of any other ways to use them, please submit the details

via [a new issue](https://github.com/aspiers/book-indices/issues/new)

, or even better, via a pull request as described immediately below.



## How to contribute



The format of these index files is extremely simple to understand, so

anyone should be able to make contributions - it's the very well-known

[CSV (or Comma-Separated Values) format](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values),

which can be edited via countless pieces of software.  The easiest way

by far is

[editing directly on this website (github)](https://help.github.com/articles/editing-files-in-your-repository/).



If you really want to edit or build new indices offline, two of the

most obvious choices are

[LibreOffice](http://www.libreoffice.org/features/calc/) and

[Microsoft Excel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel).  But

the format is so simple that it's just as easy to use a text editor.



Once your contributions are ready, you will have to

[send a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests)

which requires learning a bit about [git](http://git-scm.com/), so

unless you're particularly computer savvy, I'd recommend sticking with

the online approach.



## File format



Each line in an index file contains:



1.  the name of a tune

2.  the number of the first page of the tune within the PDF file

3.  (optional) the number of the last page of the tune within the PDF file



For example:



    Stormy Weather,452,453



means that the tune Stormy Weather starts on page 452 and finishes on

the next page.



The final page number is optional, because it can often be

automatically inferred by the starting page of the next tune, and this

makes indices a lot easier to type, edit, and read.  For example, here

the first tune can be assumed to be only one page long, i.e. finishing

on page 391:



    Seven Come Eleven,391,

    Seven Steps To Heaven,392,



Sometimes a tune will actually bleed over onto a page on which another

tune starts, in which case its final page can be manually specified to

eliminate the chance of the computer guessing wrong.



Note that these page numbers refer to the number of the page in the

PDF, **not** the number you will see printed at one of the corners of

the page!  They are usually different because the numbering in the

original books does not simply start at 1 and increase in a perfect

sequence due to the presence of cover pages, prefaces, indices,

appendices etc. which are usually excluded from the printed numbering.



As you can see, the three values are separated by commas.  If the name

of the tune contains a comma, then you must surround the whole tune

name with double quotes, e.g.



    "Night In Tunisia, A",20,



(This repository adopts the standard that tunes whose name begins with

"A" or "The" should place the

[definite or indefinite article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_(grammar))

at the end of the name, after a comma, in order to facilitate a more

useful alphabetical sorting order.)



If the tune itself already contains double quotes, then you must also

double those double quotes:



    "Take The ""A"" Train",434,



Even though this is not part of the CSV standard, it is also permitted

to add blank lines and comment lines, which begin with the `#` symbol.

However in order to avoid breaking

[GitHub's file editor](https://help.github.com/articles/editing-files-in-your-repository/),

it's necessary to ensure that comment lines have the same number of

commas as the other lines, and to avoid incompatibiliity with the CSV

format by ensuring that if the first field of a commented line is

quoted, the `#` symbol must go *inside* the quotes, not outside.  So

these are valid comments:



    # All Of Me,18,

    "# All Of Me",18,



but this is not:



    # "All Of Me",18,



Finally, UNIX line endings are used, rather than MS-DOS / Windows-style

[CR/LF](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline) line endings.



## Alternative sources of indices



- https://github.com/DThompson55/FakeBookIndex

- https://git.zx2c4.com/realbook-splitter/tree/listing.txt

- https://www.seventhstring.com/fbi/aboutfbi.html

- https://github.com/mikeln/musicindex

- http://diystompboxes.com/unrealbook/csvindexes/



## Legal stuff



Creative Commons Licence
Music book indices by Adam Spiers is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.



I am not a lawyer, but I understand that there is a slim chance that

these indices could be argued to be derivative works of copyrighted

material.  If so, they are distributed under

[fair use](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use), since:



*   the distribution is not for profit,

*   the distribution cannot negatively impact the expected revenue from

    or market for the original works (in fact if anything it should

    increase it),

*   the indices substantially less than the original work, and

*   considerable original effort was invested in creating accurate indices.