rechelle's lifelyrics

I accomplished a huge milestone this week on my “Cherished Hymns” song book project. I completed 100 of the 230+ songs that will be included in the book! In the beginning of May this year, I upgraded my Sibelius music notation software so I could begin the work of creating new sheet music and editing old files of songs from my previous project, “Songs We Love.” It was slow going at first, because it had been so long since I really worked in the software. I’m sure my learning curve was quicker having had previous experience 15 years ago, but it felt like I was starting from scratch! The other advantage to using much of what I did for “Songs We Love” is that I don’t have to start with blank sheet music for most of the songs. For the songs I’m reusing, I have to proofread, format, update the copyright labels, and make corrections that were missed in their first publication. For the songs that are new for “Cherished Hymns,” either I have found source music to guide my notation work, or I must create the music by ear from recordings of the songs. I think it’s really cool that the 100th song for this project ended up being one of my original songs! This picture shows the before & after for a song I wrote in 2008, inspired by a Dottie Rambo hymn.