In January 2001, the author began the first transcriptions when he was living in New York.

Initially, it began as a mutual project with double bassist David Peña, who provided the basic transcription of about nine songs during a visit to New York in 2001. Mark Brown then continued on his own for 14 years until he hired María Eugenia Hamoni as his personal assistant. She helped with lyrics, some transcriptions, data research, page layout, repertoire organization, databases, and many other details. During 2016, María Luisa Lamas, María Victoria Yánez, and Heriberto Rojas contributed sporadically with basic transcriptions. In October 2016, Mark attempted to hire a permanent team, but the staff changed frequently. Among the various assistants were Bernardo Bernal, Vanessa Tapia, and Javier Villamizar. The eight months of intensive work to complete volumes 1 and 2 of Libro Real included editing by María Eugenia Hamoni, Vanessa Tapia, and Bernardo Bernal. Franciest Poller worked on production from 2016, and Eloimar Bonilla from May to October 2017. Jessica Alcalá helped in numerous ways to keep the project running in 2016-2017 and is in charge of the YouTube channel, creating videos and editing. Many composers have volunteered their time and talent to improve this project, including Cristobal Soto, Henry Martinez, Pablo Camacaro, Aquiles Baez, Omar García, Vianey Isolis Ramirez, Miguel and Raúl Delgado Estevez, among others. Carlos García Carbó assisted in research, and Pedro Quintero was in charge of all the design details, both inside and out.

Only traditional Venezuelan musical styles were included in the Libro Real. The criterion used was to prioritize the most authentic Venezuelan styles and leave those derived from foreign styles for another work. Therefore, you will find joropos from various regions of Venezuela, merengues (Caracas, Eastern, and Andean), danzas (Zuliana, Eastern), gaitas, bambucos, diversiones, passages, and waltzes. Although the waltz does not originate in Venezuela, Venezuelan waltzes have characteristics that make them criollos and form an important part of the national folkloric repertoire.

We can say that we share the music of the plains and, to some extent, that of the Andes with our Colombian brothers. We in no way claim exclusivity over these genres.

Mark Brown personally interviewed many composers and showed them their transcriptions, both written and audio, to verify their authenticity with the composers themselves. If the composer was deceased, attempts were made to interview their closest musical colleagues to review the transcriptions. In cases of very old music, the oldest recording closest to the composer was sought out and used for the musical transcription.

In many cases, it was difficult to know exactly which recording was the best; perhaps there was no recording from the time, or in some cases, the pieces had never been recorded and only a handwritten score was available, sometimes by the composer, sometimes not. In some cases, the pieces were only recorded on very deteriorated cassettes of home recordings. In these cases, professional audio software was used to better hear the details and create the most faithful score possible for the piece.

Since some composers’ interpretations are very free and also vary from one performance to the next, we had to study the piece and choose how it could be written in the most basic way, assuming that each performer will interpret it in their own way. In these cases, the score serves as a guide, and users are encouraged to listen to several versions of the piece to see how they want to interpret it. For this purpose, we have created a YouTube channel with audio clips that we recommend listening to, along with information about the piece and relevant photos of the composer, performer, and the region where the piece is from.