The goal of the Hymnal Helper project is to provide audio, text, and graphic resources for liturgies, psalms, and hymns to support congregational and personal worship, for free.Materials offered here are particularly designed to work with the hymnal Christian Worship (2021) authorized by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and published by Northwestern Publishing House. Learn more about the hymnal at christianworship.com.Liturgy: 3 available
Psalms: 68 available (audio recordings pending)
Hymns: 280+ available

LITURGY

3 available
The main services for Sunday worship from the hymnal are not able to be shared due to copyright, so alternative options with similar structure are offered here. Liturgical material includes text templates, printable graphics, and audio recordings.

PSALMS

68 available (audio recordings pending)
Christian Worship Psalter contains a wonderful variety of excellent musical settings for the psalms. However, so little of the content is in the public domain that it doesn't make sense to produce audio accompaniment files as part of this project. Instead, the Hymnal Helper project offers an additional psalms resource, the Heritage Psalter. The psalter uses a modern English translation paired with psalm tones from Lutheran hymnals published in Wittenberg in the 16th century.Resources include plain text, tone graphics, and printable graphics of tone with pointed text.

HYMNS

280+ available.
To support singing, organ-based audio recordings are available for many hymns. Select hymns will also offer text and/or printable music graphics for additional verses or alternate tunes.

Hymn File Names

Hymn audio files are listed by hymn number, followed by the title, followed by a letter-number code.
Examples:
A-11-0 PD
P-13-1 PD
The letter designates the setting. A is the setting in the hymnal. P is an alternate setting from a different source that is in the public domain.
The first number designates the instrument. "1" denotes an organ as the main instrument.
The second number states what type of arrangement the piece is.
1 = full verse introduction and a standard playing of the hymn
2 = modified introduction and an embellished playing of the verses
3 = short intro and standard playing of the verses
4 = descant on final verse
5 = brass accompaniment
6 = wind accompaniment
7 = strings accompaniment
8 = ensemble accompaniment
9 = hand bells accompaniment
After the dash is the number of verses. "0" specifies all verses as printed in the hymnal. Any other number, such as 1, states the number of verses used.
PD stands for public domain. All hymn audio files offered here are public domain.Old System
Files are listed by hymn number followed by hymn title followed by my own designation that denotes the setting and instruments used.
The letter designated the setting used, with A settings coming directly from the hymnal and any other letter (like F or H) denoting that the setting came from another source. Alternate settings are used whenever the hymnal setting is under copyright.
The number designation denotes which instrument(s) are used in a recording. Numbers in the 100s use an organ as the only or main instrument. In general, 101 is a standard organ recording, 102 is embellished (such as for a festival service), 105 uses organ and brass, and 106 uses organ with woodwinds. Numbers in the 200s work the same way but are built around a piano as the only or main instrument.
The appendage "Full" denotes that the recording offers an introduction and all verses listed in the hymnal. "Single" means an introduction and one verse.

File Types

All audio files are offered for direct download in MP3 format with a bitrate of 320kbps. It is unlikely in the context of a church sanctuary for anyone to be able to tell the difference compared to an lossless file, however, if you would like lossless compression FLAC files, please make that request with the contact form.MIDI files will not be made available for general download. If you have a specific use that requires MIDI files, please reach out via the contact form.

FREE TO USE

All files offered through this site are produced from public domain sources unless otherwise marked. Copyrighted materials are clearly marked and used by permission.

DISCLAIMER

The Hymnal Helper project and this website are not affiliated with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod or Northwestern Publishing House in any official capacity. Opinions, suggestions, and recommendations offered here are solely my own.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Playback Software
All files offered on this site can be played through any media player that supports MP3, however, some programs are more useful for a worship setting.For Windows - AIMP. It's free. It can be set to automatically pause after each item in the playlist. It has a useful waveform view at the bottom so the operator can see what's coming next. Get it here.For Mac - check out QLab.

CONTACT

If you have comments, questions, suggestions, requests, or ideas, get in touch.

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