Hymnbook

Hymnbook · screen-first song leading · In active development · early access

Select the hymn, transpose the key, and lead — one screen, from any browser, no install required.

Hymnbook is a screen-first song-leading surface for public-domain hymns. A song leader selects a hymn from the verified library, pulls it up in a large-type presentable view, transposes the key for the room’s singers, and advances verses in sequence from a keyboard or remote. The congregation or class gets a clean singalong view. The library behind it is the same verified public-domain corpus as hymnal.software — every text and tune checked and shown to be free to use.

Ask about early access What it is →

Hymnbook is being built and is not yet generally available. This page describes what the song-leading surface is and where it is going -- the honest next step is to ask about early access.

What Hymnbook is

Two products, one corpus. hymnal.software is the library: browse hymns, read provenance, verify the public-domain basis, print a lyric sheet. Hymnbook is the live leading surface: pull a hymn up on screen, transpose the key, and lead the room through it verse by verse.

The practical difference is the use case. A director printing a lyric sheet for a school assembly is using the library. A song leader who needs to lead a congregation through three verses of a hymn they may not know, on a screen everyone can see, is using the leading surface. Both are free to use, both draw from the same verified PD corpus, and both are honest about the public-domain basis of the material.

The leading surface is built for the moment before a song starts: pick the hymn, check the key, set the starting verse, and go. No slides to build, no files to download, no laptop-to-projector-to-binder shuffle. The browser is the songbook; the projector or the classroom screen is the view the congregation reads from.

Hymnbook is in active development. The surface’s design is settled; the transposition engine and the single-screen leading view work today, and the rest is being built on the hymnal.software corpus and the Musique engine. Early access is how you get in first.

Hymnbook or Hymnal? The leading tool and the library

Hymnbook and hymnal.software share one verified public-domain corpus, but they are two tools for two different moments. Hymnal is the library: you go there to browse hymns, read the provenance that shows a text and tune are free to use, and print a lyric sheet. Hymnbook is the leading tool: you open it in the minute before a service or a class to put a hymn on screen, set the key for the room, and lead the singing verse by verse.

Hymnal is the library

Browse the catalog, verify the public-domain basis of each text and tune, and print a lyric sheet. Hymnal is where the corpus lives and where a director confirms a hymn is free to use — the preparation surface, at hymnal.software. It is not a live leading surface.

Hymnbook is the leading tool

Pull a hymn from that same corpus onto a screen the room can read, transpose the key before the first verse, and advance through the verses live. Hymnbook does not maintain a separate catalog; it leads from the Hymnal library.

If you are preparing — choosing hymns, checking they are free to use, printing a sheet — start at hymnal.software. If you are about to stand up and lead a room through a hymn on a screen, that is Hymnbook. Most programs use both: the library to prepare, the leading tool to lead.

From set list to screen, in four steps

The path from a service order to the last verse on screen is four steps: build the set, transpose for the room, project and lead, then archive what you led. Two of the four work today; the rest are in active development, and this band is honest about which is which.

  1. Step 1

    Build the set

    In active development

    Line up the hymns for a service or a class in the order you will lead them, and note the starting verse for each. Saving a reusable set ahead of time is in active development; today you select and lead one hymn at a time.

  2. Step 2

    Transpose for the voices in the room

    Built

    Set each hymn to a key your singers can actually reach — lower for a congregation of untrained voices, higher for a children’s class. The transposition engine is built: it shifts every note by one interval, the same way every time, before the first verse goes up.

  3. Step 3

    Project and lead

    Leading view built; projection in active development

    Put the large-type verse on the screen the room reads from and advance verse by verse from the keyboard or a presentation remote. The single-screen leading view is built; projector and second-screen output, and the phone singalong, are in active development.

  4. Step 4

    Archive the set

    In active development

    Keep the set you led so you can bring it back next season without rebuilding it. Saving and reusing a led set is in active development.

Song leading

A large-type presentable view and verse-by-verse advancing on the screen the leader controls, with dual-screen output and a congregation singalong link in active development. The whole workflow from selecting the hymn to the last verse takes less than a minute to set up.

Large-type presentable view

The leading view renders the hymn text in a large, clean, readable typeface at the size a congregation or classroom can read from a projector or screen. The verse number, the verse text, and the chorus (if any) are the only things on the screen during leading -- no navigation chrome, no menu, nothing that competes with the text.

Verse-by-verse advancing

The song leader advances from verse to verse by pressing the spacebar, the right arrow key, or a presentation remote. Each keypress moves to the next verse in the hymn's sequence. The verse number is shown to the song leader on their control screen; the congregation screen shows only the text. The leader is always one verse ahead of what the congregation is reading.

Dual-screen mode

The leader's control screen and the congregation's view are separate browser contexts. The leader sees the current verse, the next verse, the hymn title, the current key, and the advance control. The congregation screen shows only the large-type current verse. Dual-screen output to a projector or a second display is in active development; today the leading view runs on the single screen the leader controls.

Repeat and chorus marking

Hymns with a refrain alternate verse and refrain. The surface tracks the sequence -- verse 1, refrain, verse 2, refrain -- and advances through it correctly without the leader needing to remember whether the next item is a verse or the chorus. The refrain is marked visually so the congregation can see that the next item repeats.

Start from any verse

A song leader can start from any verse in the hymn, not only the first. If the program calls for only verses 1 and 3, the leader sets the starting verse to 1 and can skip to 3 without returning to the first verse on the congregation's screen. The sequence respects whatever the leader sets.

Singalong view for the congregation

A congregation that wants to follow along on their own device will be able to open the singalong view on their phone: the same large-type current verse, synchronized to the leader's advance, linked from a QR code on the leader's screen. The singalong view is read-only -- no controls, no navigation, just the current text -- and it is in active development, not yet shipped.

Key transposition

The key a hymn was originally set in may not be the key that works for the room. A congregation of untrained singers may need a melody set a third lower; a children’s class may need it higher. Hymnbook lets the song leader transpose the hymn to the key that works for the group before leading begins — one control, applied to the whole hymn, before the first verse goes on screen.

The transposition is deterministic: it shifts every note in the melody by the same interval, in the same direction, without guessing or generating anything. It is computed from the note representation in the corpus, which means it does not require the Musique engraver to produce a new score rendering every time — the transposed key is applied to the text and the pitch reference, and the engraved notation (where a hymn has been engraved) re-renders at the new key.

The song leader sees the transposed key label beside the hymn title throughout the session so there is no confusion about what key the congregation is currently in. Transposing during a session — changing the key mid-hymn — is not supported; transposition is a pre-session setting. Once a session is leading, the key is fixed.

What is built, and what is early access

Hymnbook as a whole is in early access — there is no general availability, no account, and no checkout. Underneath that, some pieces are built and working today and others are still being built. Here is the honest status of each, so nothing on this page reads as more finished than it is.

Key-transposition engine

Built

A deterministic pitch-shift computed from the note representation in the corpus. One interval, applied to the whole hymn before the session begins — no engraver dependency, and nothing generated or guessed. The transposed key label stays beside the title for the whole session.

Screen-first leading view

Built

Large-type verse and refrain text, drawn from the verified public-domain corpus and advanced in sequence from the spacebar, the arrow keys, or a presentation remote, on the single screen the leader controls.

Set-list builder

Early access

Assembling an ordered set — the hymns for a service or a class, each with its key and starting verse, saved to lead from — is in active development. Today you select and lead one hymn at a time.

Projection and second-screen output

Early access

Output to a projector or a second classroom display, and the engraved staff view during leading, arrive as the dual-screen sync and the notation engraver mature. Today the leading view runs on one screen.

Congregation singalong view

Early access

The phone follow-along that mirrors the leader’s current verse to a congregation’s own devices through a scannable link is designed and in active development.

Set archive and reuse

Early access

Saving a led set and bringing it back next season without rebuilding it is in active development.

Song-usage reporting export

Honest-off

A song-usage report — for programs that also lead material that is not public domain and owe usage reporting to a licensor — is honest-off. Public-domain hymns require no such report; this export is for the mixed-repertoire case and is not enabled.

Accounts, availability, and checkout

Honest-off

There is no account to create, no published price, and no checkout on this surface, and no card is charged. Early access is an email conversation, not a signup.

Who Hymnbook is for

Song leaders and worship-arts directors in K-12 school programs who lead a school assembly, a chapel service, or a morning meeting through hymns: the surface is designed for the live leading moment, not the preparation before it. Select the hymn, set the key, and lead — the setup takes under a minute.

Music teachers leading a class through a hymn as part of a music history or choral sight-reading lesson: the large-type presentable view and verse-advancing sequence make it a classroom tool as well as a congregational one. A teacher can advance from verse to verse from the front of the room without returning to the computer between each verse.

Community choir and church directors who want a browser-based hymn-leading surface without a subscription to a presentation platform: Hymnbook is free to use for PD material, no license fee, no performance-license requirement for public-domain hymns, and no install. The singalong QR code, in active development, is designed to let a congregation follow on their own devices if they want to.

Hymnbook is built on the same platform as the rest of the school music tools. A school that uses the choral rehearsal surface, the music library, or the carol library reaches Hymnbook from the same place. It is not a separate product with a separate login.

What Hymnbook keeps, and what it does not

Hymnbook is a song-leading surface, not a student data system. It leads public-domain hymns onto a screen; it does not hold a roster, a grade book, or a family contact list, because it does not need one to lead a hymn. There is no personal data to protect here for the simple reason that Hymnbook collects none of it on this surface.

It captures no photos and stores no face data at all — it is not a camera and not a gallery. The only thing on screen during leading is the hymn text, drawn from the verified public-domain corpus and shown with the provenance that establishes it is free to use.

The congregation singalong view, when it ships, will carry no login and identify no one. It holds a single pointer — which verse the leader is on — for the length of the session, and nothing after the session ends. A phone that scans the link gets the current verse and nothing else: no account, no history, no tracking of who is in the room.

Where the build is, honestly

Hymnbook is in active development. In active development Two pieces work today: the deterministic key-transposition engine and the single-screen large-type leading view with verse-by-verse advancing. What is being built is the rest — the set-list builder, the dual-screen and projector output, the engraved notation view as the Musique engraver matures, the phone singalong, and the set archive. This page describes the whole design; it marks each piece built, early-access, or honest-off, and does not claim all of it is usable today.

If Hymnbook fits what your program needs — a browser-based hymn-leading surface with verified PD material, key transposition, and a congregational singalong — early access is how you get in first. There is no published price and no checkout on this page, and no card is charged.

Ask about early access Browse Hymnal →

Common questions

The public-domain scope, offline use, and the chapel, choir, and classroom audiences — the questions a song leader asks before the first service.

Is everything in Hymnbook really free to use?

The hymns are drawn from the verified public-domain corpus behind hymnal.software: every text and tune is checked to be public domain — pre-1929 publication, or author and composer death plus the life-plus-70 term — and the provenance is shown. Where a well-known modern harmonization of a public-domain tune carries its own copyright, only the public-domain underlying tune is used. If a hymn cannot be verified as public domain, it is not in the corpus.

Can I use Hymnbook offline, with no internet in the chapel?

Not yet. Hymnbook runs in the browser and today needs a connection to load the hymn you are leading. A fully offline mode — caching a set so it leads without a signal in a chapel or a gym — is in active development, not shipped. If a reliable offline mode is what would make or break it for your room, that is worth telling us in an early-access note.

Is Hymnbook for chapel services, choirs, or classrooms?

All three. A chaplain leading a morning chapel, a choir director walking a section through a hymn, and a music teacher leading a class through a hymn as part of a history or sight-reading lesson are all leading the same way: a hymn on a screen the room reads from, advanced verse by verse. The large-type view and the keyboard advance are built for the live leading moment in any of those rooms.

Do I need a projector?

No. Hymnbook leads on any single screen — a classroom display, a monitor, a laptop turned to face the room. Output to a separate projector or a second display is in active development; today the leading view runs on the one screen you are on.

How is this different from Hymnal?

hymnal.software is the library — browse the catalog, verify a hymn is free to use, print a lyric sheet. Hymnbook is the leading tool — put a hymn from that same library on screen, set the key, and lead the singing. Hymnal is where you prepare; Hymnbook is where you lead. Hymnbook does not keep a separate catalog; it leads from the Hymnal corpus.

Does leading a hymn cost anything?

There is no published price and no checkout on this page, and no card is charged. Leading public-domain hymns is free to use. Hymnbook is in early access; the next step is an email conversation, not a signup or a payment.

Do I need a music-licensing account to lead public-domain hymns?

No. Public-domain hymns require no performance or reprint license, which is the point of building on a verified public-domain corpus. A song-usage report — for programs that also lead material that is not public domain and owe reporting to a licensor — is honest-off and is not part of leading a public-domain hymn.

Can I transpose a hymn for a specific vocalist or a children's class?

Yes. Set the key before the session to whatever the voices in the room can reach. The transposition is deterministic — every note shifts by the same interval — so the melody keeps its shape at the new pitch. Changing the key in the middle of a hymn, once leading has started, is not supported; transposition is a pre-session setting.

What this page is, and is not, claiming

Every capability above is written to be true to the product today. To keep the line clear, here is the same thing stated plainly.

What this page is claiming

  • That Hymnbook is a screen-first surface for leading public-domain hymns, with a deterministic key-transposition engine and a large-type single-screen leading view that work today.
  • That the hymns are drawn from the verified public-domain corpus shared with hymnal.software, shown with the provenance that establishes each text and tune is free to use.
  • That set-list building, projector and second-screen output, the engraved staff view, the phone singalong, and set archiving are in active development — designed, and not yet shipped.

What this page is not claiming

  • That Hymnbook is generally available. It is in early access: there is no account to create, no published price, and no checkout, and no card is charged.
  • That projection output, the singalong view, the set-list builder, the archive, or a song-usage report are shipped. They are in active development or honest-off.
  • That Hymnbook is a library or a catalog. hymnal.software is the library; Hymnbook is the leading tool. The two share a corpus and stay distinct.
  • That Hymnbook stores rosters, photos, or face data. It leads hymn text on a screen and collects none of those.
  • That Hymnbook is a charity or a tax-deductible donation. It is a for-profit product of Stanley Studios LLC.