Pitch Notice

1. The problem.

The hymn books have the music in a variety of keys, and these days many of the hymns books have the music set rather low.

Also, different congregations and worship styles like to sing the music at a faster or slower speed.

Most of the music on the smallchurchmusic.com website is played in a key that ranges, where possible, between A (below middle C) to D (inclusive). The tempo is dependant on the person playing.

The mathematical problem of changing either the tempo or the pitch is a significant problem that to a large extent is now solved, and has recently become available in some professional programs that suit a small church budget.

With both of the software packages recommended below, you can also edit the number of verses in the file. The process is like cutting/pasting text in a word document.

2. A free solution that will usually work.

If your required changes to tempo and pitch are minimal, you can use free programs such as Audacity (version 2.0) to change pitch and tempo together. This is a simple mathematical issue that does not introduce distortion.

What this means is that if you reduced the tempo by about 5.6% you will also lower the pitch by 5.6% (which is about 1 semitone). In most cases this is not a problem, unless you are trying to use other instruments along with the recordings.

The best way to think of this is like slowing down a tape recording when being played, and the pitch changes. In Audacity, this change is in the Effect/ChangeSpeed menu.

3. An ideal, economical solution.

This professional software has been developed and tested using some of the music from this site. It incorporates new routines that allow independent tempo and pitch changes over a wide range with no noticeable distortion.

If you would like do more than the absolute basics, then Song Surgeon is an inexpensive, easy to use solution that is suitable for churches.

Significantly, and often relevant to the Church situation, with Song Surgeon you can change successfully tempo and pitch independently, something you cannot always do successfully with Audacity.

And it won't "break the bank". Check it out: