Virtual Songbooks
A virtual songbook is like a physical songbook except that any song can be transposed and/or otherwise customized in a
number of ways. Virtual Songbooks provide transposable, customizable sheet music and MIDI files. Here is a list of many of the customizations generally available:
- Traditional SATB 4 part harmony as found in hardbound hymnals or melody only;
- Transpose to any key, up or down;
- Scale the music and/or verses to almost any size and quickly reformat;
- Reorder verses and/or delete any verses --- display/print just the verses you want;
- Chord names or guitar fret diagrams or none;
- 1, 2, 3, all or no verses under the notes or after the hymn in 1 or 2 column format;
- Verses only (no music) with optional chord names/fret diagrams;
- Print the music as chord charts in any key (verse and chordname fonts and sizes are user specifiable);
- Export verses only to an ascii (text) file;
- Extract any combination of parts, optionally with verses;
- Display the music using shape notes or standard round noteheads;
- Display the music using tablature for guitar, banjo, or any other stringed instrument;
- Change play tempos and specify number of times to repeat playing;
- Specify different general MIDI instruments for the treble and bass clefs;
- When playing more than once, specify different instruments to be used for each repetition.
- Generally virtual songs can be loaded into MusicEase/MusicEase Professional for complete editing.
The Christian Virtual Hymnal is a virtual songbook containing several thousand hymns plus Handel's Messiah.
Free Christmas Carols is a free virtual songbook of 10 traditional Christmas carols: click here for the
Mac version, and here for the
Windows version.