Preparing Materials: Step One - Quick Digest

Photo credit : Marco Arment

For those of you that are interested in the process of how materials are prepared, here's the first step after choosing a song.

STEP ONE - QUICK DIGEST

In this step, we search for the song by determining its proper title and songwriter(s). One of the best source for this is www.ccli.com. If the song cannot be found on CCLI, we have to cast a wider net using a search engine like google.com.

After that, we search for a listening reference, usually from YouTube and determine four important things:
1. Key - the song key
2. Beats - the number of counts in a bar
3. Tempo - the speed or pace of the song
4. Passages - the segments a song can be broken up into

Finally, a quick draft of the chords are made in the recommended 4-column numerical format.

As an example, here's the QUICK DIGEST of the song 'Our God' by Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, Jonas Myrin, Jesse Reeves.

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OUR GOD - Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, Jonas Myrin, Jesse Reeves (CCLI#5677416)
: http://www.ccli.com/Support/LicenseCoverage/Search/SongSearch.aspx?s=5677416
: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlA5IDnpGhc
: key = B
: beats = 4
: tempo = 104
: passages = Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge
: Intro (4)
6 4 1 5
: Verse (4)
6 - 4 1 6 - 4 1
2 - 5 -
: Chorus (4)
6 4 1 7:5
6 4 1 5
: Chorus to Verse Tween = Intro
: Bridge (4)
6 4 1 5
: Bridge to Chorus Tween = Bridge
(rhythm accent)


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If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.