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
17/12/2025
Audiences Watched Over 103 Billion Minutes of TV on Thanksgiving Day
NFL Games ...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
KPop Demon Hunters Stars Visit Berklee for Weeklong Celebration Andrew Choi and EJAE, who voiced the film's main characters and contributed to its soundtr...
17/12/2025
RT has announced that Kathy Fox has been appointed Commissioning Editor with re...
17/12/2025
The Hao AI Lab research team at the University of California San Diego - at the forefront of pioneering AI model innovation - recently received an NVIDIA DGX B...
17/12/2025
Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on ...
17/12/2025
With the new season of Dancing with the Stars shimmering in the not-too-distant future this New Year, the celebrity and dancer pairings of the twelve couples ha...
16/12/2025
Hawkins has landed on Spotify, just in time for Stranger Things Season 5, Volume...
16/12/2025
Wherever you are, your favorite music and audio content should go seamlessly with you. That's why Spotify has partnered with NAVER Corp, Korea's leading...
16/12/2025
2025 Wrapped arrived bigger and bolder than ever. This year's experience is designed to be ultra personal and shareable, with new features like Wrapped Part...
16/12/2025
Three 12-kilowatt Advanced Electric Propulsion System thrusters, supplied by L3Harris Technologies, form the core of Gateway's propulsion system. Pictured i...
16/12/2025
The challenge facing America's defense industrial base is not just about speed - its about rebuilding the foundation that makes speed possible. Our nations ...
16/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
16/12/2025
SEVILLE, Spain Canal Sur, the public broadcasting service for Andalusia, Spain, has completed a total technology refresh based on Pebble's resilient, softwa...
16/12/2025
NEW YORK Teleprompting hardware provider Telescript International has acquired all software code and intellectual property previously owned by Telescript West. ...
16/12/2025
As cable operators face increased competition from 5G fixed wireless access providers, a new report from Ookla Research finds that T-Mobile is the FWA speed lea...
16/12/2025
Apple has announced a major upgrade to the Apple TV app for device owners outside the Apple ecosystem with news that the Apple TV app for Android now supports G...
16/12/2025
Space42 grows Direct-to-Device partner ecosystem through a Memorandum of Underst...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON Announces Release Date for Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2025 R...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON's Kyivstar Invests in Renewable Energy in Ukraine with Acq...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Emma Appleton, Fares Fares, Frida Gustavsson and Jakob Oftebro...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Docu-reality My Korean Boyfriend Gets a Trailer and Premiere D...
16/12/2025
Harmonic's XOS Advanced Media Processor Improves Streaming Video Quality and Boosts Viewer Engagement SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 16, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: ...
16/12/2025
RT Sport Awards 2025 live on RT One and RT Player at 8:05pm on Saturday 20 December.
On Saturday 20 December live on RT One and RT Player at the earlier t...
16/12/2025
Singer -songwriter Brian Kennedy has been announced as the final celebrity dance...
15/12/2025
Harlem Globetrotters Celebrate 100th Anniversary With New Brand Campaign From Th...
15/12/2025
Top L-R: La Tierra Del Valor (The Home of the Brave), Mangittatuarjuk (The Gnawe...
15/12/2025
L3Harris will leverage 15 years of experience supporting the E-4B Nightwatch and...
15/12/2025
CONWAY, Ark. In a notable example of how the loss of federal funding is forcing public stations to make massive cuts and operational changes, the statewide pub...
15/12/2025
BOULDER, Colo. Public Media Venture Group (PMVG), Venture Technologies Group (VTG), and WQED have completed a multipart agreement that they say will significant...
15/12/2025
Cape Town, November 13, 2025 - SES and International artist and humanitarian, Fo...
15/12/2025
Luxembourg, December 15, 2025 - SES, a leading space solutions company, and Abra Group launched fast and reliable multi-orbit inflight connectivity service on t...
15/12/2025
How Rivian s Design Puts Drivers First-And Why That Matters Published on Dec 15, 2025 Categories: Business Solutions
LinkedIn Corporate Communications
Sha...
15/12/2025
Space42 and Cobham Satcom completed the full range of advanced terminals for the...
15/12/2025
15 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan Delivers First Starlink Direct to Cel...
15/12/2025
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor finds himself the topic of year's cracker jokes
Oasis, David Harbour, Celebrity Traitors and Angela Rayner all feature in this y...
15/12/2025
Comscore Expands Cross-Platform Campaign Measurement to Include Audio and Social New capabilities strengthen cross-platform campaign reporting suite; CCR rebran...
15/12/2025
NVIDIA today announced it has acquired SchedMD - the leading developer of Slurm, an open-source workload management system for high-performance computing (HPC) ...
15/12/2025
RT .ie has reached one billion page views this year and is on track to finish 2025 2% ahead of last year. Average time spent on the site is up 3% on 2024, with ...
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.
