When it comes to hymns and songs to sing in church, klemi allows churches to store, share and compile these into services. “Hymn” is our catchall term for “chorus”, “song”, “chant” or whatever other words you like to use (and we don’t mind what they are!).
The following document explains the basics, including how best to use the fields when editing hymns on Klemi.
How do Hymns work?
Hymns are a type of component that can be included in a service using the service manager. Regular components have only a title, a body (text) and a category, whilst hymns have additional data attached. This allows musicians to hold better records and have a clearer understanding about how a hymn will be used in a service. An explanation of the data fields attached to hymns will help to explain their usage.
Reference: an aid for service leaders to point to existing print copies for the congregation if they exist. E.g. New English Hymnal 45. This will be shown on the This Sunday page and the component page.
Copyright notice: as often listed on sheet music. This will show on service print outs and on powerpoint presentations.
Ccli: the song select license number for the song (not for your church). Include if available. Note that Klemi also offers a hymn report page which shows you how many times you’ve sung a hymn in a particular time frame. This is really useful for CCLI reporting. You can find the report page under the hymns icon.
Notes: a good place for bible references (because the notes field is included in the component search) or a bit of history behind songs to allow service leaders to enhance their introductions, Biographical info on hymn writers etc
Performance notes: Info for music leaders, singers & instrumentalists so that we lead the songs in a similar way each time (with scope for development) so congregation gets used to “the way we sing it here” – for ease of congregational singing.
Might reference structure & repetitions, tempo, keys, style, a cappella, intros, build of song….etc.. ie. General current working practice for individual songs that work well and would benefit from being repeated.
Note that best practice is to separate the content of the hymn into sections (verses / chorus) and then define the order in which these sections are played – this is done separately from the “performance notes” field.
Url: Song specific link to published place on the web. A way of acknowledging the source.
Add resource: a google drive integration to allow pdf lead sheets / piano music to be linked to individual hymns. This automatically links files to Klemi’s ‘Public Service Planner’ for musicians to prep from.
Further Notes for a Suggested Workflow
Service Planner: service-specific notes for songs can be annotated here such whether to omit a verse, point out the connection between the music and the service theme (for the benefit of the service leader) etc.
Public Service Planner: Once songs have been dropped into services on the ‘Service Planner’ double check ‘Public Service Planner’ is working well for musicians to access for their prep. Reminder emails provide a link to the public service planner so that musicians can plan ahead.
Resources: if you’d like to add pdfs to your hymns so that musicians can practice, be sure to name your files sensibly in google drive first of all so that there’s no confusion when you need to add multiple resources – e.g. first line (chorus in brackets) & indicate whether lead / piano / guitar version. Klemi will automatically list files by file name.
