In this video, I’m going to walk you through click-by-click, how to prepare chord charts
and mp3 files for your worship band using Planning Center.
My name is Jake from Churchfront.com; this is the channel that helps church leaders grow
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One of the best ways to improve the musical quality of your worship band is by providing
your team with the best possible resources to practice on their own.
The most important resources for your band are accurate chord charts and mp3 files.
If you use Planning Center to plan your worship services, I want to show you how the best
way to prepare these resources is by creating chord charts within Planning Center’s lyrics
and chord editor rather than attaching pdf’s or other chord chart files you found somewhere
else on the internet.
I’ll also show you how to host mp3 files of songs and make sure they are transposed
to the same key as what your band will be playing.
In this walkthrough I am going to show you how I created the chord charts and mp3 files
for the song “What a Beautiful Name” by Hillsong Worship.
If you’re church is not singing this song yet, then you can use this opportunity to
add the charts of this song to your Planning Center library.
Let’s begin with preparing the chord chart.
The first step is to acquire the ChordPro version of the chord charts, or write your
own ChordPro version if you have the time and musical capability to do so.
I have another video that covers the benefits of using ChordPro linked below.
Websites like WorshipTogether.com are great because have done the work for you and have
created a ChordPro version of all of Hillsong’s music.
Navigate to the song “What a Beautiful Name” on their website, click on “free ChordPro
download” button, open the txt file, and copy the chord pro text provided for you.
Worship Together also has the ability to automatically import the song into Planning Center.
Next, go to your songs library in Planning Center, and add a new song, making sure the
CCLI information matches with the correct song.
In this example, we are going to edit the default arrangement of “What a Beautiful
Name”.
Click on the lyrics and chord editor.
This is one of my favorite tools in Planning Center.
By using their native app to create chord charts, managing the songs in your library
will be much easier.
You will be able to produce charts in different keys and different arrangements in minutes,
which saves you and your team a lot of time.
Past the text you copied from the ChordPro chart into the lyrics and chord editor.
Make sure you indicate in Planning Center the original key of the song.
Next, make a few changes to the format of the chord charts.
Create two columns and change the font to Arial/Helvetica.
I prefer these settings because it allows me to fit everything on one page.
Next, edit the ChordPro chords so they are 100% accurate to your arrangement.
In this case we are going to play it just like the recording.
For instrumentals, I like to use lines and dots.
You can create these dots by pressing option + 8 on a Mac.
I also do not repeat the lyrics and chords for section of the song that repeats.
Instead I write how many times that section is repeated and if it shows up again later
in the song, the band member will see which part they are supposed to play and how many
times.
My goal is to make so all they need to do is follow the road map down the two columns.
Finally, I will also create the song sequence, which gives the band a quick reference for
the song order.
Once the charts are ready I will exit the editor and then make sure it is the proper
key.
In this case, I want a version of the song in D for a female lead and another version
in the key of E for a male lead.
Since it is so easy to do and literally takes less than a second, I will also add a capo
version for my acoustic guitarist who doesn’t know how to play anything other than the key
of G or C.
That completes the process of preparing chord charts for the song.
Next, we are going to upload mp3 files to the song so our band can play along with Hillsong
Worship as they practice.
I have purchased this song in iTunes, but first I want to make an mp3 version of the
song so it is in a smaller file format that is easier to stream.
Make sure your CD import settings in iTunes have mp3 selected.
Then select the song in your library, and then select File/Convert/Mp3.
In a few seconds, iTunes will create the mp3 version of the song.
Drag that mp3 file onto your desktop and now it’s ready to upload to Planning Center.
In the song editor on planning center, upload the mp3 to the proper key version of the song.
In this case I am going to drag the song onto the key of D and within a few seconds it will
be uploaded and ready for your musicians to stream.
Make sure you are setup with the proper CCLI licensing for them to legally do so.
What if your band needs to practice the song in the key of E?
Planning Center has a solution for that.
Hover your cursor over the original song file and click the musical note which is the transpose
button.
In this window, input the correct information to transpose the song to the key you would
like.
I am going to make sure the “from” key is D and the “to” key is E since we want
to transpose from the original female lead key of D to the male lead key of E. When it’s
ready, click the transpose button and in a few minutes the transposed file will appear
in the proper key.
Since I like to run a click and backing tracks with my band using Ableton Live, I will export
a master from the song’s Ableton session that includes the click, cues, and the original
mp3 at a low volume.
I find this is the best way for the band members to prepare because they will be able to hear
the click and cues we will use on the weekend.
Once the charts are created and mp3 files are uploaded and transposed, the song is ready
to be used in a plan.
In the plan I’m going to add a song, select the one I just created, making sure it’s
in the proper arrangement and key, and then I’ll check to make sure all of the attachments
are displaying properly.
To practice with the right chord charts and mp3 files, my musicians simply download the
chord chart book for the week and open up planning center’s media player and they
are ready to rock.
I hope you found this video helpful for your ministry and it gives you a few ideas to make
your worship planning workflow more efficient.
Share your love and opinions in the comments below and share this with other worship leaders
if you think it can help their ministry as well.
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