Taking Advantage of

Music Notation SoftwareBy Danielle Teagarden

No matter the size of your church’s worship team — from just a few musicians to a complete ensemble — getting everyone on the same musical page requires both investing in rehearsal time and structuring that rehearsal time so that it’s most effective. To do this, many churches decide to make photocopies of sheet music, put it into binders, and bring those binders to and from rehearsals and services — while other praise teams talk through chord changes together, run through them, and ultimately rely more on memory to play each Sunday. But, whatever system you currently depend on, by taking advantage of music notation software, you can really make the most of your rehearsals and save a lot of time and energy in the process. And, best of all, music notation software is extremely easy to use.

At heart, all music notation software is designed to help make writing music, rehearsing music, and sharing music with the congregation easier. It reforms a laborious “pen-and-paper” approach to writing down music into an interactive and rewarding computer experience. Whether you want to keep track of song ideas, write out instrument-specifi c parts for the whole worship band, create backing tracks, rearrange your favorite worship songs, or just print out chords and lyrics, you can do it quickly and easily — and that’s really only the beginning of its potential applications in your house of worship!

Many Times Faster Than Writing Out Sheet MusicTo start using music notation software, all you need is a computer. You can use your regular computer keyboard and mouse to enter in notes, creating quick “short cuts” to speed up adding common rests, note values, and time signatures. But, one of the best ways to enter in notes is to use a MIDI-capable keyboard controller — and it’s possible that your church’s main wor-ship keyboard will do the job. Just connect it to your computer — maybe via its USB connection or with a MIDI interface (check out page 74) — and then play each instru-ment’s parts on the piano. The software will intelligently put the notes in the right place on the musical staves. In fact, even if you aren’t used to formally writing music nota-tion, you can just choose the right tempo,

play along with the virtual “metronome,” and perform your entire composition on the keyboard — it’ll appear right on your screen, just as if you’d entered every single note and its note value! What’s more, you can conveniently “copy and paste” your musical ideas around, to creatively try out new arrangements, without committing to them, just like you would with text in a word processor.

Hear Your Creations Played by a Virtual Worship BandMusic notation allows for an extremely fl uid, inspiring workfl ow, which helps bring your focus to the music as a whole, rather than the tedium of each note. And adding to that easy workfl ow and overall rewarding experience is the ability to actually hear your musical ideas played back as you create them. That’s because most notation programs include a wealth of virtual instrument sounds — from basic instruments all the way to orchestral sections, choirs, and beyond. When you enter in note information — say, a bass line, a piano part, and a few guitar chords — you can hit “play” and hear a virtual worship team play the song back to you. It creates a much more natural way to work than does playing out each instrument part on the piano — you can really get a feel for how instrument voices work together and contribute to the overall sound. Plus, even if you don’t know how to play a particular instrument in reality, the software will let you know if you’ve written a part that’s too high for the instrument or that’s in too diffi cult a range for most musicians to play — that way, you can more easily tailor your compositions and arrangements to the skills of each member of your worship team.

Easily Rework Your Favorite Worship Songs, Just by Scanning Them InRather than starting with a new song, if your house of worship currently has a collection of favorite sheet music, then you can easily bring it into your notation software program of choice for reworking — without having to enter in every note. Many programs support music scanning right out of the box or

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At heart, all music notation software is designed to help make writingmusic, rehearsing music, and sharing music with the congregation easier. It reforms a laborious “pen-and-paper” approach to writingdown music into an interactive and rewarding computer experience.Whether you want to keep track of song ideas, write out instrument-specifi c parts for the whole worship band, create backing tracks, rearrange your favorite worship songs, or just print out chords and lyrics, you can do it quickly and easily — and that’s really only thebeginning of its potential applications in your house of worship!

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can quickly be expanded to support it. Just use your church’s regular scanner; grab your existing sheet music collection; and, in moments, you’ll have all of those songs inside your

computer. From there, you can rearrange parts, add lyrics, turn multiple pieces into a medley, or take an old standard in an entirely new direction — and all you have to do to share your fi nal creations is

hit “print.”

Create Professional Backing Tracks — for Performance or RecordingAnother advantage of using notation software is how easy it is to make the transition from “idea” to a full production. If you have a small-scale worship ensemble, you can write out complex parts in the software; hear how they sound; and then create a CD of each of those songs, with virtual instruments playing the complementing instruments behind your worship team. It’s a great way to add realistic drums beneath a more basic piano/guitar service or to add new dimension to a song by developing a string section behind it. And even if you don’t have a need for performance backing tracks, you can easily put the songs you’ve written onto CDs and give them to each member of the worship team or choir, so they can play along and rehearse at home.

Down the line, you may decide you want even richer or more specifi c virtual instrument voices to use in your notation software program — and, fortunately, that’s also easy to do. In fact, if your church uses any software recording program, you may already own additional virtual instrument plug-ins that you can use inside of the notation software. If not, you can add a specialized virtual instrument to your collection — maybe a famous grand piano or a B3 organ sound — and then use it in both your notation software as well as your recording software.

And, extending that thought, not only can you share instrument sounds between your production software and your notation software, but you can also share information. You can use the same MIDI information you entered to develop your score to create tracks for your recorded produc-tions. Or, you can take your existing MIDI orchestrations from your recording projects and move them over to your notation software, for further refi ning or reworking them. Whichever way you move the MIDI information, it’s extremely easy to do — and a great way for your house of worship’s recording expert to communicate with your songwriting worship leader, without them needing to use the same software at the same time.

Using Lead Sheets As a Performance Tool and to Connect with the CongregationWhile creating and using complete sheet music is often useful in the rehearsal stages with your worship band, sometimes you just don’t want to fl ip pages when you’re performing in the chapel — but you also don’t want to rely entirely on memory to play through your long song list. To aid with this, notation software includes tools to help you create “lead sheets,” or streamlined versions of songs. These lead sheets typically include a staff with vocal melodies and harmonies, lyrics below those notes, and chord names printed above the musical staff. In moments, you can take all of your complete songs, quickly generate single-page lead sheets for everyone, and place them on music stands for quick reference while performing.

Outside of performances, you can also use lead sheets to help the choral ensemble practice, since all the lyrics, harmonies, and melodies will be printed on the page. You could even use lead sheets to create a custom praise book for your church, and then make copies for the congregation, so everyone can sing along during services. Plus, because the chord changes are clearly noted on the lead sheets, it’s easy for the youth leader to take the sheets out on a youth retreat and play through favorite songs on just guitar.

From Solo Guitar to Full Ensemble — Finding the Right Program to Serve Your House of Worship’s Needs There are a variety of excellent music notation software options available, and we’ve outlined them for you on the next few pages. Many are actually versions of the same program — just with varying feature sets, to meet different degrees of need. In fact, there are even guitar-specifi c notation- and tablature-creation programs available, which are perfect for those with more guitar-based services. Of course, if you have any further questions about which software is right for your house of worship, your personal Sweetwater Sales Engineer will be happy to help you — just give him or her a call!

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