Berklee Press to Release New 300-Song Real Book on February 3 The Berklee Real Book is a definitive collection of songs that have shaped the college's curriculum, complete with insights from Berklee instructors.
By
Colette Greenstein
January 24, 2025
Image courtesy of Berklee Press.
On February 3, Berklee Press will release the much-anticipated Berklee Real Book, a curated collection of more than 300 songs that are staples for gigging musicians and a snapshot of the music that resonates across the Boston campus of Berklee College of Music. This project was realized through Berklee's long-standing music publishing partnership with Hal Leonard LLC, which legally licensed every song in the collection.
Berklee is the world's leader in contemporary music education, says Debbie Cavalier, Berklee Online CEO and cofounder, who has been overseeing Berklee Press since 1998. It's only fitting that Berklee's performance division curated this diverse collection of popular music for aspiring musicians for generations to come.
A Real Book is a curated collection of lead sheets-musical shorthand for jazz and popular tunes-that musicians use to perform, study, and improvise. This new volume honors Berklee's commitment to contemporary music education, showcasing a diverse array of musical styles, including those rooted in the African diaspora, that also embraces global traditions. The repertoire was carefully selected based on extensive surveys of Berklee faculty and department chairs, reflecting the songs most commonly taught and performed on campus. The Berklee Real Book also includes educational insights from these instructors about what makes each song worthy of study, whether it's unique chord changes or specific techniques for students to master.
We've got a lot of tunes that are here not because theyre the most popular, but because they're ideal for musicians learning to improvise, says Jonathan Feist, editor-in-chief of Berklee Press. Some are relatively new to us [at Berklee], but most have been ringing in the Berklee campus hallways for decades.
The original Real Book began at Berklee in the 1970s as an underground project by students who compiled and sold unlicensed lead sheets of bebop and jazz standards. Dubbed The Real Book as a nod to earlier fake books, it became a must-have for musicians, even as it operated outside copyright laws. In 2004, Hal Leonard legitimized the series, securing copyrights and expanding the repertoire while preserving the iconic style of the original volumes.
The new Berklee Real Book features music by everyone from Dolly Parton and Alicia Keys to John Coltrane and Ant nio Carlos Jobim. Spanning centuries and genres, the new volume offers students a robust and dynamic learning tool for their music education.
To order the new Berklee Real Book, visit halleonard.com/product/50449558.
About Berklee PressSince 1957, Berklee Press has been the official publisher of music instruction books and videos based on Berklee College of Music's renowned teaching methods and curriculum. Written by respected Berklee faculty and alumni, as well as other music industry professionals, Berklee Press titles let you learn about the performance, business, technology, and songwriting of music on your own turf and timetable.
Related Categories
News
Most Popular
Rihanna sings during the Concert for Valor in Washington, DC, November 11, 2014.
Image by EJ Hersom / CC-BY-2.0
This Rihanna Song Has Secret' '80s Easter Eggs The SOS songwriter revealed a nostalgic twist to the lyrics, and it's going viral on TikTok.
Latest
Students and faculty at the Emerging Artist Intensive at the Miami Art Studio
Image by John Parra/Getty Images, courtesy of the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation
Berklee Global and Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation Launch Emerging Artist Intensive Sponsored by TikTok, the immersive learning experience gave aspiring music creators insights into song production, the music business, and stage performance techniques.
Brent Havens '77 leads a symphony orchestra in a performance of the music of Led Zeppelin.
Image courtesy of Windborne Music
Berklee Ensemble Orchestra to Perform the Music of Led Zeppelin Brent Havens '77 will lead a full rock band and an orchestra of Berklee students and alumni in a performance of the iconic band's greatest hits.
Alissia BM 14 earned a Grammy nomination for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical-only the ninth woman to be nominated in this category.
Image courtesy of Alissia
Why Alissia's Grammy Nomination Signals a Needed Shift As only the ninth woman nominated for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical-a category that no woman has won-she's shining a spotlight on an industry overdue for real change.
Read All
Subscribe The latest sounds, stories, and ideas, sent to your inbox weekly.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
02/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
01/06/2026
Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music
AudioShake has introdu...
01/06/2026
The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...
01/06/2026
Category line-up & sponsors announced
Photo: Paul Clarke
The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...
01/06/2026
New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed
Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...
01/06/2026
Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps
The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...
01/06/2026
Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded
Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...
01/06/2026
SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026
1 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...
01/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Agentic AI is getting physical.
At COMPUTEX on Tuesday, NVIDIA announced NVIDIA JetPack 7.2 and NVIDIA NemoClaw support on NVIDIA Jetson.
JetPack 7.2 brings a...
01/06/2026
Financial institutions have spent years building AI: fraud models, credit models...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
Berklee Press to Release New 300-Song Real Book on February 3 The Berklee Real Book is a definitive collection of songs that have shaped the college's curriculum, complete with insights from Berklee instructors.
