More and more churches are having to face up to the fact that they have no organist or music group to accompany hymns and worship songs. For that matter, many smaller organs are getting beyond repair, and it's difficult to raise the many thousands of pounds required to replace them.
There are now a range of accompaniment alternatives for hymns and worship songs. It ought to be stressed that these are never as good as having a live musician - they are inevitably inflexible and a little mechanical in feel - but they're a lot better than nothing.
There are three main options available: CDs, MIDI players and electronic hymnals.
CD accompaniments
CDs provide the cheap and cheerful option. You can obtain a reasonable library for less than £40. You will, of course, need a player (this will need a fair amount of power - you can't expect a congregation to sing along to a portable), and CDs have some limitations - you will have to fiddle around and find the right track each time, they may not have the number of verses you want, and there is no flexibility in terms of speed or pitch.
If you don't want singing, just accompaniment, the best value route to a library is our range of accompaniment CDs played on a pipe organ by John Keys, organist at Nottingham University and St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Our general set contains 138 tracks on six CDs, and is superb value at £37.99 including p&p - click here for more detail, including a full track list, or to order a copy. John has also recorded an additional set of 49 popular hymns, two excellent Christmas carol accompaniment CDs at just £10.99 each including p&p, a CD of hymns for Remembrance (including the Last Post and Reveille and various national anthems), a double album of hymns and voluntaries for weddings and two CDs of voluntaries - click here for more details of all CDs.
If you don't want a full set you can also buy individual tracks from our library of 450 tracks, emailed as MP3s or on a custom CD (up to 20 tracks), at just 99p ($1.99) per track, plus extra payment for the CD and postage if required. Order 10 or more and the price drops to 89p - 20 or more and it's just 79p per track. That way you can select just the pieces you need at minimum expense. Click here for details of individual tracks.
If you need even more hymns, or more modern songs, try Kevin Mahew's 'No Organist? No problem!' CDs. There are two 10 CD sets of 200 general hymns at around £90 each (the second has a lot more 20th century hymns) and single CD selections, some for special times of year like Lent and Easter or for Weddings. Available in both Catholic and non-Catholic versions. If you use Songs of Fellowship or other worship song collections, Mahew also has 'No Music Group? No problem!' CDs to cover your requirement. Follow the links below to get a full list of tracks on each set, or to order them:
- No Organist, No Problem! - the original 200 hymn set at around £90
- No Organist, No Problem! 2 - the follow-up 200 hymn set at around £90
- No Organist, No Problem! Catholic version - the Catholic 200 hymn set at around £90
- Just Organ 1 - 20 of the most popular hymns from NONP at around £10
- Just Organ 2 - 20 more selected from NONP at around £10
- Just Organ Easter - 20 Passiontide and Easter hymns from NONP at around £10
- Just Organ Christmas - 20 carols from NONP at around £10
- Just Instrumental Christmas Carols for Children - 20 child friendly carols and Christmas songs for around £10
- No Pianist for Assembly, No Problem! - 150 hymns and songs for schools at around £90
- No Praise Music for Kids, No Problem! - 150 traditional and contemporary praise songs for children at around £90
- No Music Group, No Problem! - 200 worship songs for those without a band at around £125
- Just Instruments 1 - 20 worship songs from NMGNP at around £10
- Just Instruments 2 - 20 more worship songs from NMGNP at around £10
- Just Instruments Easter - Easter worship songs from NMGNP at around £10
A third alternative to consider, if you want to choose specific hymns, is Hymp3. They have a library of 198 hymns played on a pipe organ (by the excellent organist Dr Francis Jackson), plus 94 worship songs played on piano. Like our individual tracks service, you can pick any selection of tracks to download for 99p each.
If you would prefer backing for traditional hymns with a more modern instrumental feel, see Redstone Music's Hymns and Carols CDs. The backing tracks are sequenced, so can have a slightly mechanical tempo, but the instrumental sound is good. Note that not all the tracks have the melody clearly played on volumes 1 and 2, so aren't all suitable for congregational use.
It's also worth taking a look at the Small Church Music Site which has a wide range of MP3s available on organ, piano, keyboard and small band. The performances are variable - some good, some less so - but many of the tracks are free and you can search by song, tune name, metre and more. Songs still in copyright cost 20 US cents each.
If you suspect your congregation is going to need some voices on the CD to sing along with try the set of New English Hymnal recordings from Priory Records. See our dedicated page for full lists of which hymns are on which CD.
If you prefer Hymns Ancient and Modern, Cantoris Records has a set of 200 hymns on CD that can be bought a CD at a time for £14.95, or £169 for all 15 CDs. Each hymn is recorded with choir and organ, and includes the essential playover to get the congregation up to speed.
If you don't want a comprehensive library, there are individual CDs of hymns with singing in our CD section.
MIDI files and players
Next up in the price bracket are MIDI files and players. MIDI files are computer files that contain the information an electronic instrument needs to play a song. Because they only contain instructions and not the sounds themselves, they are very compact and very flexible. MIDI files can be played on almost all modern computers, many electronic keyboards and standalone MIDI file players. If you decide to use a computer or a keyboard you will probably need to plug it into a sound system to give it enough power to be heard by the congregation. Follow this link to see examples of standalone MIDI players. There is a very wide range of MIDI accompaniments (over 1,000) available from the Worship Downloads site. Using MIDI files is more complicated to use than CDs - consider CDs as well.
Finding MIDI files
If you decide to go with a MIDI player you will need files of the hymns. These are commercially available, but there are also a range of online sources from which you can freely download hymn files. Here are a few choice locations:
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- Lutheran-Hymnal.Com
- A good collection of traditional and more folky hymns. Accompaniments of traditional hymns often piano and rather slow (some MIDI players will let you change speed etc.)
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- The Cyber Hymnal
- Over 2,700 hymns, complete with lyrics and details of their authors. Lots of information, but the MIDI files themselves are often rather soupy arrangements and not necessarily good for accompaniment.
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- The Hymn Site
- Mainly traditional hymns; allows you to hear the same hymn in piano, organ or bell arrangements.
Electronic Hymnals
Almost the ultimate option, electronic hymnals are pre-programmed, specialist MIDI file players that already contain a vast range of hymns. The big advantage is that they enable you to set up the hymns for a service just how you want them - number of verses, speed, pitch, amens at the end or not - then set each hymn going by remote control, ideal if the person taking the service doesn't have a helper. The downside is cost - these devices are well over a thousand pounds/dollars. They are also more complicated to use that CDs - quite a few parishes who have electronic hymnals also use CDs when they need a quick hymn or two without the fuss of setting up the machine, so consider CDs as well. But the fact remains these electronic hymnals are very versatile. For information on Digital Hymnal, the best known of these products, follow this link for the UK and this link for the US.
Robot Organist - the POS Key Playing System
We thought until recently that electronic hymnals were the ultimate for those without an organist - but it seems such a waste if you have an organ, but no one to play it. Now a company based in Lincolnshire, England has started building what are in effect robot organists - a device that sits above an organ keyboard, and plays the keys, controlled by a midi file. This gives the flexibility of an electronic hymnal, but with a true organ sound, making use of your actual physical organ. These devices, properly the "POS Key Playing System" don't come cheap at £2,800+VAT - but they are custom built for your organ. (The system is removable, so a human can play if available.) The device reads MIDI files from floppy discs - you can make your own, but it comes with four discs featuring 100 hymns, voluntaries, short pieces and "in and out" voluntaries. It also has a remote control, so it can be used without anyone by the organ. For more information, contact Pipe Organ Services, email pipeorganservices@yahoo.co.uk or by phone +44-(0)7831-767241 or by fax +44-(0)1400-281499. As with all MIDI solutions, a CD can sometimes be easier for a quick tune (or if you have a daughter church with a different organ) - consider CDs as well.
Looking for a particular type of music or a CD with a particular piece on? Drop us an e-mail and we'll try to help. Do let us know also if you can recommend on online resource and we'll add it to our lists.
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Unleashed Limited 2006
Last update 03 May 2008
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