The pew edition presents some hymns (about 15% of them) as unison-only, if that’s how they are to be sung. The keyboard/guitar edition includes complete keyboard accompaniment for all hymns and service music, as well as guitar chords (and capos if needed) above the staff.
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Well, I also decided to get a copy. Congratulations on an excellent book – and what a huge project!
I’m curious how you did the pew and keyboard versions? Did you have two engravings for each, or were they done separately somehow?
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I’ll be curious to read Dan’s answers as to how he handles it, but speaking for myself, I will have two instruments for a hymn: a generic voice and then a choir reduction. Then you input the melody and lyrics in the voice part, and then you put all the notes into the choir reduction party and copy down the lyrics. Each instrument has its own layout, so you simply set the layout options appropriately and engrave each version and export them both.
That’s a good idea, but I’m doing totally separate files.
Ah, I wondered if there was some condensing trick and two layouts. But I know this sort of project is tricky to lay out.
Just to say that your work on this project has been nothing short of extraordinary!!
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Wow, this sounds outstanding!!
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Looks amazing! Congratulations.
I intend to buy this - I am not sure about other people but I find that as I get older some of the KILLER hymns seem to have eight lane freeway access to my soul - overwhelming both my mind and emotions.
My attitude to worship music is that it should be beautiful like for example the city of London is beautiful - we should be seeking to take the best of the new - combining it with the best of the old. I am absolutely ambitious about church - I seek not just to preserve it but grow it - but I cannot imagine being able to do that without drawing on the best of times past.
The sample pages on the website show just how much of a work of art this is.
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Congratulations Dan, this is impressive work, I understand better why you had take away your hands away from other initiatives recently. You may be proud!
Warm greetings, Robrecht
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Dan, my copy arrived today, and it’s beautiful. Congratulations!
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As did mine. It is indeed quite lovely.
There really are some beautiful texts in this hymnal too. It’s a little treasure trove for me.
(I did have to chuckle at the subtitle “A Liturgical Hymnal”. Is there such a thing as a non-liturgical hymnal? 
)
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Here are some photos of the new instrumental edition, clocking in at a whopping 1,220 pages in two volumes. It adds full keyboard accompaniment for every selection, as well as chord symbols above the staff.
After much head-scratching, we ended up not using capo chords, because two lines of chords would have been too cluttered. Everything on the page is 10% larger than the pew edition, but to accomplish this as easily as possible without resizing everything, I just modified the original Dorico file to make it a bit taller, then exported the new PDF and enlarged it in InDesign.
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That looks really nice!
Stew
Beautiful!
Very nice! Congratulations!
Wonderful work Dan! Congratulations!!
Looks very well done!
Surely the pinnacle of American hymn publishing today. Happy Easter!!
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@dan_kreider did you do the arrangements? What a big job!
I’m still trying to get over the trauma that someone used C. Hubert H. Parry’s tune for something other than “Jerusalem.” 
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