| I don't think 4-part vocal stuff will help in jflash's case. That would most likely make all of his contemporary music sound like hymns, since hymns are played as 4 vocal parts on the organ or piano. He already should have this option (called hymn sheet) on SongSelect, but I've not found a use for it.
There are a couple of things I would recommend, unfortunately none of them are an "easy fix." Stick with me, this post is a bit long, but I hope it will help. I came into my present Worship Pastor position earlier this year and I've needed to produce more sheet music than I ever have in the past. So here are some things I've done with my people, specifically keyboard players:
First:
Evaluate each person's strengths on the instrument and attempt (when possible) to match song choices with that person's strengths. I have a pianist who is fantastic with notated sheet music but was almost illiterate when it came to reading chord symbols. I try to pick music for her weeks that utilizes more of the written-out arrangements the team already had in its pocket before I got here. This has also worked well for me with color instruments like flute and violin who already had some parts worked out.
Second:
Don't be afraid to recommend your musicians to further training, especially when you can point to a specific resource. I have recommended a couple of pianists to pick up a book that help them play with chords, called How to Play from a Fake Book. (There are two books with this title on Amazon, it's the one by Michael Esterowitz. I tried to post a link but I have too few posts yet to do this.) Alternately they could look through a "chord approach" method book, but those are a bit too simplistic. Bottom line -- any learning materials that help them to learn and visualize chord forms is good, but something that helps them to put those chords into useful movement is better.
Last:
This is the most expensive of my suggestions, but for me it has been worthwhile. I had the church buy a copy of Sibelius music notation software for me to use in preparing parts for my sheet-music-musicians. It has saved me hours and hours and hours because it's so easy to use. AND, what I like best about it is that I can put whatever notes I want on the page and hear the computer play it for me, allowing me to write parts for instruments I can't play well (or at all). I wrote a 24-bar piano and violin interlude one week to join two songs together that sounded great...but I couldn't play any of it myself. I just put the notes on the screen and the computer showed me what it would sound like. The software is between $400-500 but as I said it has been worth it for me. I used to use Finale Print Music (around $60-80) but there were so many limitations and it wasn't easy to use at all. This software has allowed me to give parts to instruments that I shouldn't even be able to write for based on my playing ability, and I highly recommend it.
Any of these things will help -- all of them will help A LOT. Good luck!   |