Attention Composers! Review of HolyMeasures.com

I am quite excited about this post!  This one is for all the part-time worship music composers out there in music ministry.  This is for those of us that don't have professional songwriting contracts.  This is for those of us that have composed popular praise and worship songs at our churches and would like to share our them with the rest of the world.


I recently came across an article describing the purpose and motivations behind a new website: HolyMeasures.com.  It is described as a "Place for Independent Religious and Spiritual Sheet Music"


It is a site where we can upload our sheet music that can be viewed and shared with other churches around the world.  For us composers, it is a free process.  For those downloading, a token fee is charged, and part of it is passed on to us.



Now, I'm not in it for the money.  But I do have many songs that have been popular at a small number of churches.  Many now sit in a stack in my basement or in the back of a drawer.  For me this seems like a great way of sharing our worship songs with the rest of the church.

My experience

I tried the site on one of my songs, Into the Light, and it was a very easy process.  Like I said, it is free for us composers, so there were no credit card pages to worry about.  The sheet music must be in pdf format.  This wasn't an issue for me and the songwriting software I use.  And an audio track is encouraged to be uploaded as well.  It needs to be in mp3 format.  Again, this wasn't an issue for me, since mp3 is by far the most popular audio format available.

Next up, were several categorical questions.  Answers to these questions placed my song in various categories that facilitate searching and locating by interested churches. These questions ranged from song arrangement type, to faith, to holy season, and so forth.  Usually more than one category at a time could be selected.  I liked this, since my songs can be multi-faceted.  I took a snapshot of the category screen so you can get a feel of how it works.

Lastly, after I submitted the song, I received a message saying that the sheet music would be reviewed within 24 to 48 hours.  I was told that this was a simple precaution to ensure that submissions are indeed religious music.  Sure enough, in about a day I could view my sheet music online after a simple search.

Limitation

For some music ministry groups, I know this site will have one key limitation.  This site isn't for every composer.  This site is really aimed at composers of formal sheet music.  Many music ministry composers I know don't write out formal sheet music, but rather scribble a chord chart over the lyrics and then record an mp3.  Maybe there is a place for that kind of sheet music, but probably not here.

Questions

For me, it is unclear who the audience is for this site.  Who are the types of people that search, view, and download songs?  What songs and what song type would best be suited for this audience?  For these questions and more I have arranged for an interview with the founders of HolyMeasures.com.  This interview will be in an upcoming post.  Stay tuned!

Conclusion

So what do you think?  Would this site be of use to you in your music ministry?  Are you planning to upload your songs there today?  Let us know.  Add your comment of your thoughts and experiences to benefit other music ministries.

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