Sing-a-long Hymns (video library/karoke style)

[therightlayne]

If anybody has seen something like this already, please point me in the right direction because I haven't found it yet. I have searched youtube videos, and while there are tons of sing a long karaoke style videos, the selection of lds hymns is quite limited. I have wanted to use something like this in my family home evenings to help my family learn the hymn book.

There are at least three things about this that would just be awesome:

1. If it's on youtube or something, you could put it on your TV using a blueray player or by connecting your laptop to the TV with an HDMI cable.

2. You wouldn't have to worry about having enough hymn books for everybody.

and

3. It would be great for people like me who struggle to stay on key without the accompaniment music in the background

I've never made a youtube video like this, but I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to do it since it seems like 13 year-old girls have already done this with all the Justin Beiber songs.

If this isn't out there already or at least in the works, I may try to figure it out and do it myself since I have the hymn book on CD.

Any thoughts?

[russellhltn]

Have you looked at the interactive music player?

[sbradshaw]

LDS Mobile Apps has great sing-along iPhone apps for the Hymns and the Children's Songbook:
http://ldsmobileapps.com/apps/

The same is available for Android devices here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deve ... ps+by+Lift

These unofficial church-related apps are developed as a side project by Hilton Campbell, a church employee who has done great work on official church apps like Gospel Library and LDS Music.

[therightlayne]

Those are both great suggestions, thank you. The apps are good if I have some downtime while on the go, and the interactive hymnal is great to really learn the music on my laptop.. now if I could just find something designed for the TV so everyone could sing-a-long together.

Well, I was thinking about it and since I can't find what I'm looking for I thought I'd get to work on making it. I created a youtube playlist and started uploading the hymns from the general conference archive, then maybe I can figure out how to create a video with lyrics and pictures of Christ in the background for the rest of the hymns.

[russellhltn]

I created a youtube playlist and started uploading the hymns from the general conference archive,

This is most likely a copyright violation. Note that YouTube requires "You must own the copyright or have the necessary rights for any content you upload. Learn more" While the church makes General Conference publically available, it's not public domain.

To get permission, the best place to start would be to contact the Intellectual Property Office at:

Phone: 801-240-3959 or 1-800-453-3860, ext. 2-3959
Fax: 801-240-1187
E-Mail: cor-intellectualproperty@ldschurch.org.

or by writing to:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Intellectual Property Office
50 E. North Temple
18th Floor, Salt Lake City, UT 84150-3012

[sbradshaw]

If you have the right cords, you can plug an iPad or (some) Android devices into a TV or projector, or your laptop.

Another thing you can do is gather together playlists of videos from the Mormon Channel on YouTube that are choir and congregational hymns in General Conference. For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIACeirlcEA
These videos have the words of the hymns...

[JamesAnderson]

For Youtube, the Church has put up all the music from the last five Conferences on that site along with the talks. Those also should be available on Roku and on the apps as well. The congregational hymns mid-session have the words on-screen,

Also, if you look at the Interactive Music Player, you will see to the right many resources such as the mp3 recordings from the CDs if copyrights allow, and there are now only about five they can't put online for download. Also, if you go to the bottom of the page, some actually have links to some of those same Tabernacle Choir and other choir performances as found on General Conference pages.

As to the usefulness of the apps, that has been proven time and time again. Earlier this year I was involved in a training meeting, and they hooked up a smartphone to speakers and ran the music-only recording of the hymn, we sang to that. That even with a piano at the other end of the cultural hall and there was no meeting that required its use otherwise.