Saturday, February 07, 2009

Digital Christain Music on Demand

In the past, songs were always song the same way, but now you can go to a church and a song could be sung a little differently in every church.

Lifeway Christian Resources, the publishing division of the Southern Baptist Convention, with nearly 16.4 million members is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., this week launched a new online digital music platform, SongMap. The service not only offers downloadable Christian music but also enables users to transpose keys, change songs' order of verses, choruses, introductions and transitions, and download their creation and print out sheet music for various instruments. SongMap, is aimed not only at Southern Baptist congregations but other Evangelical churches and has 900 downloadable songs that include contemporary, gospel and traditional hymns.Although the typical users of SongMap will be Christian pastors and music leaders, the technology also can be a tool for schools, wedding planners or anyone needing customized sheet music or audio files.

Lifeway surveyed over a 1,000 churches and found many have trouble finding musicians to perform and lead in church services. SongMap now enables churches to use music in their services, with or without musicians. SongMap music was created by over 150 Nashville-area studio musicians, engineers and producers.

Users can access and pick songs through Lifewayworship.com Once an arrangement is complete, they select and print out sheet music for an individual instrument, with each instrument costing $1.49. They can also purchase accompaniment tracks, which omit vocals, for the congregation to sing along to. The cost per track is $1.99.

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