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There is no excuse for congregational songs which are longer than two pages of music. It's simply being indulgent.
A few years back, this unnecessary plague on the church was responsible for a very slight increase in world demand for metals (thus likely contributing to inflation). A boiler-maker (welder) at my home church had a regular order from church musicians for his "Music stand extension". This basically consisted of a sheet of light-weight metal with a 90 degree ledge at the bottom (to mimic the stand). It was designed to sit on top of the original music stand but it was twice as wide and could hold four A4 sheets of music. All this was an attempt to deal with the mountains of pages that some songwriters insist on composing.
Removing superfluous pages will help avoid the beat-killing instantaneous page-turn that has killed many a song. There's nothing worse than coming up to the final bars of How Deep the Father's Love only to find your piano player has commenced the opening chords of Indescribable. It seems at times our dear piano playing friends need to practise the instantaneous page turn as much as their technical playing.
All this nonsense could be avoided with a bit of restraint from our song-writers. Get rid of the 16 bar introduction, remove the solo, cut the key change, throw in a couple of repeats.
Problem solved.
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Thanks Yockie, for the link reminding me of this gripe.
seriously though - don't you reckon that 'longer-than-2-pages' is just one of dozens of frustrating aspects of congregational song charts? i reckon i could work full-time just fixing up ordinary charts for churches.
ReplyDeleteAmen brother. But it would be a full-time job.
ReplyDeleteI kind of play off a combination of feel and commonly accepted arrangements. The problem is when this is contradicted by the music, and when musicians (somewhat rightly) insist on playing it as written.
It would be great if a song is copyrighted on CCLI, then a generic sheet music file would need to be provided, that can be downloaded, edited and/or transposed with ease.
I'd love to find out whose decision it was to create & upload 75,000+ charts onto CCLI's Songselect with NO song introductions: "WHY!?"
ReplyDeleteIt was no doubt the work of Satan.
ReplyDeleteOr at the very least (as the decision was probably made by a beloved brother/sister in Christ) it is a result of living in a cursed world.
Now I'm not actually the music dude at church, so I'm not familiar with Songselect. Can you transcribe with the click of a button?
you can't transcribe anything in Songselect - all the charts are pre-prepared (pre-transcribed) - but you can transPOSE (Ie. change the key) - and you can choose whether or not to print a lead sheet (words & chords) or full music (for needy piano players). Pretty useful resource.
ReplyDeleteI meant transpose, but typed without thinking.
ReplyDeleteThis knowledge could come in very handy. I've just started adding the clarinet to my repertoire, and though I imagine it will be about 12 months before I could probably pass muster to play in church, I would have no hope of transposing on the run to Bb (if that is the correct terminology).
check it out bro - it's on the CCLI website. There's an annual fee, but my church has found it worthwhile - and I know a lot of others who have too. There's even a way to suck the lyrics straight out of SongSelect and get them projected onto a screen (so you don't have to prepare powerpoints) - but we've not gone down that path and stuck with powerpoint.
ReplyDeletehttp://ccli.com.au/
I think you're on to something.
ReplyDeleteI think untidy writing is one of the reason for the too-long charts. If the syllables line up in each verse, then you don't need more than 2 pages.
ReplyDeleteThanks Simone for the insight into WHY these people hate trees so much.
ReplyDeleteI was tempted to mention you personally in the post as I noticed when I was helping with the EMU testing of new songs, that each of yours and Phillip's was confined to a single page of music.
On a related note, I sang from an Anglican hymn book for the first time the other day in chapel. We were unaccompanied (no one plays the organ) and I was amazed at how helpful it was to have the melody printed on that page. Your songs could fit in a hymn book, music and all.
The greatest crime in music printing has surely been committed by the publishers of "Blessed be your name".
ReplyDeleteSomehow, the publishers have decided it necessary to spread the music across four entire pages, despite the music being made up of just 4 chords.
My poor fellow church pianists, dispense with the mess of the four pages, get a post it note and scrawl in pen;
B F# G#m E B F# E E
Now you're ready to play.
I could make a fortune out of this - the Matt Dodd Post it Note Church Song Pad (R) TM
I can smell the royalties as I write...
You could invent the post-it note test
ReplyDeleteIf I can't fit my song on a post-it note, its time for a re-write.
Our music fits onto one page cause we're barely capable of writing a chorus let alone a pre-chorus and bridge. But we write a mean verse.
ReplyDelete