Create That Song/Fake Book

It's no secret to my friends. I have very poor short term memory. I will find myself singing "la la la hum hum pum words words words" a lot when we get together to play. That is why I started my song book(s) - collections of the songs that I play. I can trot a song book out at a music night, and be assured that the words I see will be the ones that I sing.

It's a simple thing to do. Just get the words for your favourite songs, and then put them somewhere together. I have one songbook in a binder, and another is just stapled.

I have found the following methods good for acquiring new words for my song book.
1. Ask your friends to help you. They may already have lots of songs on their computers.

2. Type them out yourself. I found the best way to do this is to listen to them on the computer (so it is easy to stop, pause or restart to get the lyrics).

3. Download them from the Internet. If you like folk and bluegrass (like I do), then the following sites will be useful for you:

• The Bluegrass Lyrics page is the source of a lot of the lyrics in my bluegrass song book. They cover Bluegrass, Gospel, and Early Country Music. This is the first place I look for a new song.


• Mudcat Cafe is a good source for general folk lyrics. It has a massive database. You can sift through a lot of stuff before you find what you are looking for, but chances are it is there if you persist.


• Song texts of the original Carter Family


• Woody Guthrie lyrics at woodyguthrie.org


• Ballad Tree This site has tonnes of great links.

Take it to the next level and make it a fake book by adding chord letters, and a simple melody line. You can create the melody lines with ABC notation.

Have Fun Playing!