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Lyrics & Chords formatting considerations

Many Planning Center Services users will want to keep not only the song lyrics in the Lyrics & Chords for a song, but additional text such as copyright, ChordPro® Format, and other text that does not need to be displayed to the congregation when presenting the song in Projector Classic.  Planning Center Services will automatically strip out ChordPro information when preparing a song for Projector Classic to include just the Lyrics and song sections.  However, you might need to consider a few things to maintain the flexibility of having extra formatting (to generate chord charts) while also being able to properly display the song lyrics in Projector Classic.

Curly brackets are your friend

This is an example portion of a ChordPro chart downloaded from the SongSelect music service:

{title: Have Thine Own Way}
{artist: Words by Adelaide Addison Pollard, Music by George Coles Stebbins}
{key: Eb}
{tempo: 48}
{time: 9/4 }
{ccli_license: 214376}
{ccli: 28225}
{copyright: Words: Public Domain | Music: Public Domain}
{footer: For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com}

{comment: Verse 1}
Have Thine own [Ab/Eb]way     [Eb]Lord, have Thine own [Bb7]way 
Thou art the [Bb7]Potter, I am the [Eb]clay 
Mold me and [Ab/Eb]make     [Eb]me    [Eb7]after Thy [Ab]will 
While I am [Eb/Bb]waiting,    [Bb7]yielded and [Eb]still

CCLI Song # 28225
© Words: Public Domain | Music: Public Domain
For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com
CCLI License # 214376

There are a couple of problems with this formatting that will keep Planning Center from generating the desired song lyrics:

  1. The Verse is enclosed in curly brackets, which will prevent Projector Classic from distinguishing where the Verse text is.

  2. The song information at the bottom is not enclosed in curly brackets, so Projector Classic will attempt to display it.

The following tweaks will be made to the text to fix these problems:

  1. ‘{comment: Verse 1}’ will be changed to Verse 1

  2. Curly brackets will be added around the song information at the bottom:

  3. {CCLI Song # 28225
© Words: Public Domain | Music: Public Domain
For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com
CCLI License # 214376}

Once these two changes are made, Planning Center will correctly generate the Verse 1 song lyrics and keep the song information at the bottom from being treated as lyrics.

The technique of selectively applying the curly brackets to various portions of a chord chart can also be used to keep the bracketed text from appearing in the song lyrics (that Projector Classic displays) while still appearing in the chord chart that Services generates.

Avoid ‘a,b,c’ song section titles

Services sometimes will have difficulty with some song section titles that you might often find in a ChordPro or other lyric download.  For example, consider the following sample:

IMPORTED FROM SONGSELECT
Chorus 1a
Bless the [A]Lord O my [E]soul  [B/D#]O my [C#m]soul 
[A]Worship His [E]holy    [Bsus]name  [B]
Sing like [A]never be - [C#m]fore  [A]O  [B]my  [C#m]soul 
I’ll [A]worship Your [B]holy    [A/E]name    [E]    [A/E]    [E]

Verse 1
The [A]sun comes [E]up, it’s a [B]new day [C#m]dawning 
[A]   It’s time to [E]sing Your [B]song a - [C#m]gain 
What - [A]ever may [E]pass and what - [B]ever lies be - [C#m]fore me 
[A]   Let me be [E]singing when the [Bsus]eve - [B]ning  [E]comes   [A/E]  [E]

Verse 2
You’re [A]rich in [E]love and You’re [B]slow to [C#m]anger 
Your [A]name is [E]great and Your [B]heart is [C#m]kind 
For [A]all Your [E]goodness I will [B/D#]keep on [C#m]singing 
[A]   Ten thousand [E]reasons for my [Bsus]heart   [B]to    [E]find       [A/E]  [E]

Chorus 1b
Bless the [A]Lord O my [E]soul  [B/D#]O my [C#m]soul 
[A]Worship His [E]holy    [Bsus]name  [B]
Sing like [A]never be - [C#m]fore   [A]O  [B]my  [C#m]soul 
(1.) I'll [A]worship Your [B]holy    [E]name   (To Ch. 1b / V3)
(2.) I'll [A]worship Your [B]holy    [C#m]name (To Tag)

There are a couple of things in this ChordPro text (imported from SongSelect) that will confuse Services and end up generating missing song sections, as well as song sections that don’t make sense to show to the congregation:

  1. The ‘Chorus 1a’ and ‘Chorus 1b’ section names do not map into the expected song section names that Services likes to see for generating clean lyrics.
  2. The Chorus 1b has two ending lines that will be sung at different times in the song.  While this makes complete sense to the musicians reading the resulting chord chart, it is very confusing to non-musicians in the congregation.

To fix these issues, we will take the following steps:

  1. Replace Chorus 1a with Chorus 1, and replace Chorus 1b with Chorus 2.  Services will then properly generate song sections for the lyrics output.
  2. Use our curly bracket friends in a clever way to always show the final line of Chorus 2 in the lyrics, but still show the optional endings in the generated chord chart (see below).

The resulting tweaks appear like this:

IMPORTED FROM SONGSELECT
Chorus 1
Bless the [A]Lord O my [E]soul  [B/D#]O my [C#m]soul 
[A]Worship His [E]holy    [Bsus]name  [B]
Sing like [A]never be - [C#m]fore  [A]O  [B]my  [C#m]soul 
I’ll [A]worship Your [B]holy    [A/E]name    [E]    [A/E]    [E]

Verse 1
The [A]sun comes [E]up, it’s a [B]new day [C#m]dawning 
[A]   It’s time to [E]sing Your [B]song a - [C#m]gain 
What - [A]ever may [E]pass and what - [B]ever lies be - [C#m]fore me 
[A]   Let me be [E]singing when the [Bsus]eve - [B]ning  [E]comes   [A/E]  [E]

Verse 2
You’re [A]rich in [E]love and You’re [B]slow to [C#m]anger 
Your [A]name is [E]great and Your [B]heart is [C#m]kind 
For [A]all Your [E]goodness I will [B/D#]keep on [C#m]singing 
[A]   Ten thousand [E]reasons for my [Bsus]heart   [B]to    [E]find       [A/E]  [E]

Chorus 2
Bless the [A]Lord O my [E]soul  [B/D#]O my [C#m]soul 
[A]Worship His [E]holy    [Bsus]name  [B]
Sing like [A]never be - [C#m]fore   [A]O  [B]my  [C#m]soul 
{(1.) }I'll [A]worship Your [B]holy    [E]name{   (To Ch. 2 / V3)}
{(2.) I'll [A]worship Your [B]holy    [C#m]name (To Tag)}

Hopefully the two examples mentioned above will help you have your cake and eat it too (helpful chord charts and clean lyrics for Projector Classic)!