Music Collection Notes

Formatting notes

• • Hymnary

    • some are PDF with Opus fonts. Download as PDF, then reprint from a PDF program (acrobat or pdfxchange). The PDFs can then be imported into CorelDraw for manipulation

    • Sibelius scores can be read from Scorch software (also gets opus fonts), but can't be printed to PDF

  • SongSelect - - transpositions pretty easy, but lead sheet waste a lot of space -- reformat with Corel Draw

What Have We Got and Where is it?

• • IVP Hymns II -- nice collection

  • donated hymnals from EVFree (Hymns for the Family of God I think) . Old and in rough shape, but we have often used them for the Christmas carol section

• Songbooks. Originals are on Tim's computer

  • Lyric books in wordperfect format

  • Musician copies start life as SongSelect Downloads, Hymnary downloads, some other download, scans, or finale or sibelius file AND END UP as PDF files before being compiled -- see LCF Songbook

• Powerpoints

  • we used to have many on the LU server, "campus_share on 'curtis' (U:) -- these have probably been deleted

  • I think I have a jump drive somewhere from Sarah Ruffledt that has a lot of songs on it.

  • Megan uploaded many of them on the LCF-LU drive (as google presentations, I think, not ppt)

• There are lots of old songbooks (including hal leonard fake books), probably in storage or at Tim's house

• Tim is in the process of tossing all the old transparencies and sheet music when he finds it

Naming Files

• • SONG TITLE all in caps, Mixed case for first line

  • some files designate:

    • lyrics (meaning this file contains only words, such as for a transparency)

    • chart (i.e. words and guitar chords – or more specific, like - in F)

    • lead sheet (i.e. words, chords, and melody line)

    • music (an arrangement)

  • some files designate source, key, and number of pages

    • SS = songselect

    • H or Hymnary = the Calvin College hymns website, http://www.hymnary.org

A Few Handy Web sites

• • http://www.ccli.com/UnitedStates.cfm, click on Song Search to find copyright information on a particular song (and to see if it is covered under CCLI).

  • http://www.worshiparchive.com/worship_chord_sheet.asp has lots of free chord charts.

  • http://www.finalemusic.com/. Finale showcase contains many arrangements submitted by users, see http://www.finalemusic.com/showcase/fs_home.asp.

  • http://www.musicnotes.com/ has loads of digital sheet music for sale, but also has a nice search capability, which turns up the first page of sheet music (a sample) with sound demo.

Notes on Keys

SongSelect keys (going down will lower the pitch for the song in SS, i.e. transpose down). SS does not properly label minor keys (e.g. labels C minor as Eb major).

"Singable" means neither to high or low for a group to easily sing ("C to shining C").

The goal is to get a song into a key that is singable AND can be played easily on guitar (good guitar keys marked in yellow).

A capo can be used to transpose a guitar to a higher key (one half step per fret) while playing an easier (lower) key. But we'd like to avoid using one unless necessary.

If a song is singable and in a yellow key, great! No adjustment necessary.

If a song must be transposed for group singing (usually down because it is too high for average singers), try to go down to a yellow key, or at least closer to one. See Transpose Down column.

If a song is in a bad guitar key, see if you can transpose up or down to a yellow key and still be singable.

If you are stuck in a key that isn't yellow, we'll have to transpose the guitar and use a capo according to the middle column. The musician's copy can then be notated one of a few ways:

(1) make one copy of the lead sheet (in the singable key), but write "GUITAR chords written in (key), use CAPO (number)" to indicate that the guitar chords are in a different key, OR

(2) make two copies of the lead sheet, one with the piano part ("PIANO") and no guitar chords, and a second with the guitar part labelled "GUITAR PART: use CAPO (number) to raise to (key)"

(3) we can do one sheet and put transposed chords in a different color -- this (or 2) might be best, in case the piano player is reading the chords too