Let’s be honest…. all of us female worship leaders/singers struggle with the keys of the songs that are written by male worship writers. They are AMAZING songs, but that doesn’t help us when we can’t hit the notes!! Typically they are way too high for our female vocal range, and turn us into a bad impression of Alvin and the Chipmunks when we try and hit those big high chorus notes!
Help is at hand! You may already know how to transpose music… I personally can’t read music, I play by ear and chords… So I found a few sites that help make ALL the difference for me in transposing!
(Just in case that’s a new word to some of you here, transposing is taking a song, and changing the key it’s in. So the melody moves up or down/higher or lower. )
Check out these websites where you can paste in a song with guitar chords, and have it change it into new chords! Typically, you’ll want to change a song written by a guy into a lower key for your voice. If a song in written in G or A (often too high for me), I’ll tranpose it down into D or E. So I’d paste the words and chords of the song into the website above (http://logue.net/xp/) and enter “E” for the “New Key” and hey presto!! You can print it and give it to your band!
Here’s another site that does the same thing!
You can find that site at: tabtuner.com
Enjoy! Got any questions or comments? Share below!
Love,
Vicky
I use the top one all the time. Not because I can't transpose, but because it's WAY faster.
That is soooo cool!
if have to transpose on the fly, try using basic bar chord shapes to find the right key. let say your music is in the key of C but D is a better key for you, a D shaped bar chord is exactly the same as a C, just 2 half steps up, if you dont feel comfortable playing with bar chords thats when you capo 2 with C shapes.
if anyone has any questions about transposing feel free to ask, i'd be happy to help!
Thanks Vicky! This is such a big help! One of my favourite songs is “Above All” by Michael W. Smith, but it's sung WAY too high…definitely going to give this a whirl!!!
Thanks again! God Bless!
Hi Vicky,
Thanks for your thoughts here, and for the awesome work you do.
I have just one question about deciding what key to use in worship. I hear a lot of talk about setting the key to the worship leaders voice, but I'm not sure I buy it. Surely worship is about getting the people to participate. Our congregations are not trained vocalists, for the most part, and so their vocal ranges are limited. I hear lots of worship leaders complain that their people don't sing well. Could it be because we're setting the song to suit our voices, and not the peoples'?
If we're performing – doing a show to entertain – then we can set the song in a key that makes our voice sound good. But, if we're leading worship – getting the congregation to participate in an encounter with God – then surely we should be setting our songs in the key that makes the congregations' voices sound good? That encourage them to sing and participate and enter into the worship experience?
I worry that we're making worship leading about sounding good musically, and not about facilitating an encounter with God. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
Grace
John
This is a brilliant idea!
if that issue should arise, i would highly recommend trying vocal exercises to expand your range a bit.
I have always thought that picking keys and also more generally picking songs that actually work for worship is really important. I'm an alto and I'm always changing the original key. It's a process though and once I find the key I like I go and find a guy to I see if the key is comfortable for him. This usually results in adjusting the key a little to find a sweet spot for both of us. What's important to note is this that I never ask the best male singer I know to judge the key with me – instead I ask someone with a more limited range so that I can make sure that most people will feel good singing it. Also there are just some songs that are great but not really suited for all types of corporate worship. For example, the vocal range required to sing some of Chris Tomlin's songs is just too big. I think it's a better choice to not use a really popular song if it doesn't suit the group you're singing with.
Mandy, that's great advice. The point here, for me, is about ensuring that the key is the most comfortable for the congregation – not for the worship leader. Your strategy for choosing keys is a great one for making it comfortable for all. I think I'm going to have adopt it
Rawkalways, vocal training can help the worship leader, but unless you're taking your whole congregation on a vocal training course (not a bad idea I suppose!), then training the worship leader only makes the problem worse, in a sense – the worship leader can then sing even more stuff the congregation can't manage.
got it, maybe vocal lessons arent for everyone, but my point is, once you improve your range you can sing in keys that most people can sing in.
mandy! that is a great idea, and i would never have thought of it!
That is great. Another great thing to do is teaching/ learning the Nashville number system with your band. That way you never have to worry about transposing anymore and you are more free to ‘go off the page’ and play spontaneously and still sound tight.