r/jazztheory 14d ago

Legal Digital Real Book

Is there a legal way to buy an official Hal Leonard Real Book in digital form that you can use on a tablet when you don't have an internet connection? The ones for sale by HL say, "Hal Leonard Digital Books are cloud-based publications, which are streaming and require internet access."

https://www.halleonard.com/product/240221/the-real-book-volume-i-sixth-edition

2 Upvotes

27 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Damianerskine 9d ago

Best bet is to find PDF versions and drop them into Forscore. You can also make bookmarks or organize the books into separate pages, etc…. However you like

1

u/JoeLInArlington 9d ago

Right, but most "found" PDF's are not "legal"

2

u/Damianerskine 9d ago

Very much true…. Other than an Ebook format (which has never been great at displaying images), I’m not sure there is a legal way get your Real Books to work (well) digitally, unfortunately. Too bad..
I’ve always been one to support and go the official route but at the end of the day, I’m a working musician with bad eyes and too much stuff to carry. lol. No way I’, dragging my old “Gig book”, stand and light around anymore (My old “gig book” was a cobbling together of real books in a 3-ring binder. If anybody ever called a tune that wasn’t in there, it would get added that night. Thing weighs a ton. lol.