[tonystride]

Fakebooks also improve classical playing. Learning how to read a lead sheet format forces a musician to internalize core music theory principles. A common classical music pitfall is relying too much on shallow rote learning, black dot = push down key without the substance of musical grammar & vocabulary.

I often see classical music as a lead sheet with the written notes being the composer’s suggested arrangement technique. It takes some time to see the collections of dots (notes) as higher level pattern like chord symbols but it all leads to the same place!

[edit] your playing becomes less fake by learning how to fake from a fakebook!

[hammock]

A lot of classical compositions were actually just lead sheets… and the modern publications have interpolated a full score

[tonystride]

I’ve heard that before, do you know of any examples? It makes sense since many of those composers were improvisers.

[hammock]

Many examples in this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realization_(figured_bass)