Tidying the song library: tags, duplicates, chord variants and keys

A messy library costs you a little every week: two copies of one song, a tag nobody understands, a key that suits only one singer. You don't need a big clean-up weekend. Half an hour a week on the songs you actually sing will do.

Start with what you sing

In Music → Songs, set Order to Most played, and work down the list. The first thirty songs are most of your Sundays. Use Last played to find songs nobody has touched in years, and the Status filter to see Drafts left over from an import.

Tags: a short list, agreed once

Tags are comma-separated, in the song editor. They filter the list in the desktop app, under Tags, so a good set helps whoever's choosing songs on a Saturday.

• Agree on ten or fifteen tags before you start, such as communion, Christmas, upbeat, opening.
• Write them down somewhere the team can see. There's no bulk rename, and in the desktop app Upbeat and upbeat are two different tags.
• Don't tag what the app already knows, such as the author or the key.

Imports add a tag for their source. That's useful for a while, and it does no harm if you leave it.

Duplicates: find them, keep one

WorshipPro has no automatic merge for songs, so this is manual work. Set Order to Title, or search for the first few words, and look for pairs.

Which copy should stay?

• A song from a shared songbook beats an imported copy, because corrections to the songbook reach you by themselves.
• If yours has your chords, keep the songbook copy anyway, and move the chords across as a variant (see below).
• Compare the plays: the copy your team has been using may have better notes.

Before you delete, check your upcoming plans. A plan that uses a deleted song shows Song missing. In Services, open the item with the pencil and use Change to pick the copy you're keeping.

Then, on the song page in the browser, use Delete song. Know what it does:

• a Draft is deleted for good,
• an Active song moves to Archived and disappears from your devices.

The dialog says this can't be undone, so take it seriously for a draft. Setting Status to Archived yourself is the gentler option for a song you no longer sing: it leaves phones and tablets, but note that it stays on the list in the desktop app.

Chord variants: don't copy the song

"Amazing Grace" and "Amazing Grace (simple chords)" shouldn't be two songs. Use the Chord variants tab:

• Copy the original and edit, or Paste or import, to make a variant.
• Team variants are for everyone. Mine is only for you.
• In a plan, the leader picks the Team chord variant for that service.
• Anyone can star a variant as My default.

The slides and the text on phones always come from the original, so a variant can never put wrong words on the wall. If you already have chord-only copies, turn each into a variant, then delete the copy.

The original lyrics can still change. When someone corrects them, a variant shows The original has newer text, and you can move its chords onto the new text.

Keys: one song key, many Sundays

Three places hold a key, and each has a job:

• The song's key (the Key field) is the default. Keep it as the key you most often sing, not the key of the last singer.
• The plan's key is for one service. On the plan, open the song and set Key. The song itself doesn't change.
• Personal keys (a tab on the song page) record who sings it in which key. Use Add a person's key. Mark a position as Lead vocal on the team page, and when that person serves in it, the plan suggests their key.

Musicians can transpose on their own device, too, and it changes nothing for anyone else.

While you're on the song, set the Tempo (BPM). It's what the band click offers on Sunday.

One more filter

No CCLI # shows songs that the CCLI report can't count: no CCLI number, and not public domain. Fix these while you're tidying, if you report to CCLI.

If you make a mistake

The History tab keeps earlier versions of a song. Restore brings back the whole song as it was, and the current version stays in the history. So edit without fear, and delete with care.

What's next

• Songs: songbooks, new songs and moving from another program
• Songs on screen: slide split, text size, form and quick fixes