User Friendliness

Page turns

Hopefully we can learn from the mistakes in other hymnals. There are several of these. The first has to do with awkward page turns. Ideally, in a hymnal there should be no page turns. When the hymn goes on to two pages, a turn can usually be avoided easily. The problem comes with a three page hymn such as "Jerusalem" (see the 1990 Hymnal no. 252). This could be solved in two different ways. In one, the extra line for the melody could be omitted, although that would introduce text between the staves in a rather difficult score. Another would be to print only the vocal score (one page, as used at #450, "O Day of Peace") at both #252 and #450 and include a 2 page accompaniment elsewhere in the hymnal. This, by the way, would use 4 pages total, the same as in the present arrangement. As it is, the organist who is faced with playing this hymn typically must use a copy machine and "Scotch" tape to make a reasonably usable score. Even then there is the difficulty of playing from the score of #252 while singing the totally different text of #450. A minor problem with hymns spread over two pages is that it can be awkward to make a copy (for playing) on one 8.5"x11" sheet. This could be helped by providing one-page versions by download at least in some instances. The one-page downloads of all the hymns - because they should be enlargements, might also be inserted in large-print bulletins as an alternative to large-print hymnals which may lack the musical score. Just because a person becomes vision-impaired doesn't mean they have lost whatever skills they may have had in reading music. This criticism also applies to projection of hymn texts without the music onto large screens.

Paging

The 1990 Hymnal uses only hymn numbers after page 16. One occasionally needs a page number rather than a hymn number. The Worshipbook turns this problem on its head by using only page numbers. If you refer to Hymn 234, for example, will it be "Praise the Lord" or "You are the Lord, Giver of Mercy"? (both on same page). There is no numerical way to refer to a specific hymn unambiguously.

Indices

The most problematic feature of the Worshipbook is the arrangement of the hymns in alphabetical order, apparently to avoid having an alphabetical index, or perhaps to avoid having to decide on some other order! When one is looking for a hymn but is unsure of the word order or spelling it is usually easy to find it by quickly scanning an alphabetic list; this is impossible in the Worshipbook. There is a two page index of unfamiliar first lines that helps somewhat, but it still doesn't take the place of an alphabetic index that includes titles as well as first lines (when different from the title). The indices in the 1990 Hymnal, are traditional and useful.

Psalms

In the 1990 Hymnal some of the psalms arranged for chanting may seem quite difficult to the inexperienced cantor and organist. While these versions are satisfactory for an inexperienced congregation, expanded versions could be quite helpful to the musicians involved. These could be made available via the internet to churches who have purchased the new hymnal.