Features

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Features of Christian Virtual Hymnal 20K

See all music on your screen exactly as it will print. Hymn functionality includes:

  • Traditional 4 part SATB harmony as found in the physical hymnals or melody only;
  • Transpose to any key;
  • Scale the music and/or verses to almost any size and quickly reformat;
  • Re-order verses and/or delete any verses --- display/print just the verses you want;
  • Edit/completely change the verses for most hymns;
  • Search for hymns with specified attributes (e.g., tune, meter, words);
  • Lead sheets;
  • Rhythm charts;
  • Alternate tunes;
  • Chord names or guitar fret diagrams or none;
  • Verses under the notes or after the hymn in 1 or 2 column format;
  • Print the music as chord charts in any key;
  • Export verses only to an ascii (text) file;
  • Display/extract/play any combination of parts with any verses;
  • Display the music using shape notes or standard round noteheads;
  • Display the music using tablature for guitar, banjo, or any other stringed instrument;
  • Display a hymn using either mixed single and double stemming, or using only single stemmed notation.
  • Import completely new hymns/choral works;

And when playing,

  • Change tempos and specify number of times to repeat playing;
  • Specify different general MIDI instruments for the treble and bass clefs;
  • When playing a hymn more than once, specify different instruments to be used for each repetition (much like when an organist changes the organ stops at the beginning of each stanza);
  • Save hymns as MIDI files which then can be played later or imported into a sequencing program for further manipulation.

Regarding Handel's Messiah, Bach's Magnificat, Christ lag in Todesbanden, and Mass in B Minor, Vivaldi's Gloria, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli and Mozart's Requiem:

  • Scale the music to different sizes and automatically reformat it to fit the pages;
  • Use any available font and size for lyrics;
  • Extract any combination of parts;
  • Scale any combination of parts smaller than the other parts;
  • Transpose any combination of parts (to facilitate the performance of the music by transposing instruments);
  • Display the music as shape notes;
  • Display individual parts with or as tablature;
  • Have the music played by your computer, optionally after changing the tempo;
  • Save the music as a MIDI file.

If your church uses the 2008 Lifeway Baptist Hymnal, Celebration Hymnal®, Hymnal for Worship and Celebration, 1991 Baptist Hymnal, Lutheran Book of Worship, With One Voice, 1989 United Methodist Hymnal, 1990 Presbyterian Hymnal, New National Baptist Hymnal (21st Century Edition), Christian Life Hymnal, the Secular Hymnal or the 1985 Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal, the Christian Virtual Hymnal 20K is something you will find indispensable. It contains almost all the public domain songs (i.e., no CCLI license is required) in these collections and will save you many hundreds of hours and provide unprecedented flexibility in creating transposable sheet music with optional chord names/fret diagrams, transposable chord charts and MIDI files. Also included are over 1100 Christmas/Advent hymns and carols, around 50 hymns from Music Sacra, about 170 SATB spirituals from John W. Work's American Negro Songs plus a number of additional hymns from other sources. Additionally over 1,500 shape note hymns taken from various versions of the Sacred Harp and other shape note hymnals are included.

Altogether about 20,000 public domain selections are included ready for use. Transpose to any key. Reorder and/or delete any verses. Display SATB, lead sheets or chord charts (verses only - no music - with chord names and fret diagrams). Extract any combination of parts. Scale to any size. Edit the lyrics. All music can be displayed using either shape notes or standard round noteheads.

Music and verses are the same as in the respective hymnals so no editing is generally required for congregations using these hymnals. Use the Christian Virtual Hymnal 20K (either by itself or in conjunction with a sequencing program) in place of an organist. Quickly print out just hymn verses for weekly bulletins or transpose hymns for the choir. Individual hymns, Messiah scenes and movements from the other sacred works (e.g., Requiem, Gloria) can be imported into the MusicEase Professional music score editor and fully edited.

[Integrity Music, Brentwood-Benson and MediaShout Corporation have all used this same virtual hymnal technology of ours in their products. E.g., we created Brentwood-Benson's "Praise and Worship Song Book With Over 600 Songs" CD-ROM with this technology.]

Newly added in this version is the ability to use an alternate tune for the music of hymn. Also new is the ability to search for a hymn which has a specified melody (incipit), which uses a specified tune, which has a specified meter (e.g., 8.6.8.6), which contains/does not contain specified words/phrases, etc. Switch between having hymns displayed using mixed single/double stemmed notation and all single stemmed notation.

Perhaps the most important new feature is the ability to import new hymns. Such music must have been created using either 1) HymnWrite or 2) MusicEase Professional and adhere to several constraints. New hymns created using MusicEase Professional should have the same form as most SATB hymns in modern hymnals. An imported hymn is generally amenable then to all the customizations listed above for hymns included in the Christian Virtual Hymnal 20K. New choral works can also be imported. In fact, any piece of music once imported into the Christian Virtual Hymnal 20K and customized, can then be exported in its customized format, and then imported into MusicEase Professional for further editing. And, of course, the edited piece could be imported once again into the Christian Virtual Hymnal 20K if desired. This back-and-forth technique can also be used with built-in music.

The Christian Virtual Hymnal 20K is fully self-contained. MusicEase Professional is not required to run it.

The Messiah is also available as a separate stand-alone program at www.messiahsheetmusic.com. Its functionality is the same that is available in this Christian Virtual Hymnal version. There is a video on the entry page describing many of the ways in which music in the Messiah can be customized. The same types of customization work with the Requiem, Magnificat, Mass in B Minor and other included sacred works.