Christian Hymnal Project - News of the Day - September 2, 2019
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"Topical Index" - "Alphabetical matches" first round finished. I am now doing a "reverse match" second round topical index verification of Hymns starting with "O," currently checking "O, Why Not Tonight?."
Check Out Our Newest feature: Hymn Search, the forum where we help people find Christian songs and hymns (even if they are not in this project). ● Please Pray For This Project ●
Re: Things that go... If you look at the Hymn List today you will discover that I have completed the first 300 hymns for the project (ie: I have sheet music and mp3 files posted for them).
My goal currently is to have the first round of the project completed before my birthday in April.
Re: Things that go... When I started this project the goal was clear to me. The message board would have everything in the hymn book project posted and all copyrighted material from the artists would be hidden from the general public, but available to anyone working on the project.
Now I have reached the stage where, despite my best efforts, some of the hymns do not even have a recording to post in either the public or hidden side of the message board!
After praying about this for several days I have decided that even if I do know the hymn, even if the hymn is being performed in some churches, and even if I could create a "acapella" version of the song myself that is not what God is asking me to do.
Accordingly, no matter what I think of the song myself, if there is no "fair use" recording available to provide those who are interested in the hymn project a reasonable idea of what they would be receiving when the project is completed then I will not include that hymn in the hymn list and the hymn will not be in the completed song book.
I find that sad but given the nature of the project, and the nature of the method some have chosen to "protect" their copyrighted material it is necessary to do this so that the project can continue.
Re: Things that go... Sometimes I get stubborn, There is a hymn titled "I Shall Not Be Moved" with about ten different versions of the lyrics and no less than 3 copyright holders!
I have ordered a hymn book printed in 1927 to see which hymn by that name is the correct one for one of the authors and that should also aid me in determining which hymn belongs to the other two authors involved if I am fortunate.
Re: Things that go... One thing I have discovered is that with some hymns the words are changed depending on which Christian group is doing the publication. The weird part is that the hymn author is given credit even when the text of the hymn is sometimes radically changed! The same cannot be said for the musical arrangement where even minor changes result in a change on who composed the score.
It appears that to have online mp3 support for the hymnal I will have to obtain some sort of license that allows the mp3 files for the copyrighted hymns to be broadcast, even when the instrumental versions are created through my own recording performances!
Thank goodness I am getting at least some help on how to put all of this together.
Re: Things that go... I am on track to make my March 15, 2016 deadline for the initial hymn compilation.
The second round is for data verification. I am calling this the "cull" period because if I have been unable to find any type of tune recording for a hymn after 2+ years then it is time to take that hymn off the list of what will be published when I am done.
That does not mean things stop being updated, if I find a better recording in round two I will replace it. Likewise, even though the hymn selection is almost solid I will add to the hymn selections if I find a hymn I know and feel like God wants that hymn in the final product.
As always, I continue to pray about this project and appreciate the prayers of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ for this projects successful completion.
Re: Things that go... My initial collection is finished (one day early). I ended up with 571 hymns and songs which is almost twice the number I thought I would have when the project started!
Re: Things that go... I was contacted by one of my candidate the recording studios yesterday and they will be looking at the hymns for "The Christmas Project" over the next few days.
Fellowship Road will be at my church Sunday and after services we have a scheduled "working/fellowship lunch" set up to go over their songs for "The Christmas Project."
I need every ones prayers on this, I thought my project "seed money" was going to be the insurance settlement from my car accident back in October 2015 but they still have not settled and now it is May 2016! This means I am going to be looking around to see what God wants me to do on funding the whole project...
Re: Things that go... I will be spending some money to set up this project as a new business (probably a LLC) in the next few weeks. This is more for contract matters than anything else.
Re: Things that go... I am thinking of short devotionals or meditations to match both the scriptures and hymns. I do not know if they will be a part of this project just yet.