What is available
Song order, your way. Every song now plays one of two ways.
Blocks. Top to bottom, the sections as you wrote them. This is how every song has always behaved, and it stays the default.
Sequence. An order you arrange yourself. Drag a chorus in as many times as the song sings it, in whatever order the band actually takes, and the arrows walk it exactly like that.
Available now on every tier.
What changes
Most worship songs are not sung in the order they are written. The sheet says verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. The band does verse one, chorus, verse two, chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus, ending.
Until now, the person at the screens handled that from memory. Down arrow, down arrow, then scroll back up to the chorus, then back down to the bridge, then up again. Every repeat was a small search in front of everyone.
Now you build that order once. In Edit Song there is a new column called Render. Choose Sequence, then drag sections into it. Every drag adds another instance, so the same chorus can appear four times, even twice in a row. V1 C V2 C C B C C E is nine steps, and the arrows walk all nine.
The arrangement reaches every screen
This was the part that took the most work, and it was found by running it for real.
The first version worked in the editor and on the projector. Then I used it in a real run, and the Active Item list in the Studio still showed the old order. Fixed that. Then I looked at the other screens. The singers' phones, the stage monitor, the pulpit display and the Plan Remote were all still showing blocks, and one of them was frozen on the first verse.
The cause was simple once I saw it. The order never left the Studio. The other screens were being told which line was live, but not in what order the lines came, so they could not have shown a sequence even if they wanted to.
So the order now travels with the song to every screen that follows it. One song, one order, everywhere. The singers see the chorus coming because it is coming, not because they remember that it usually does.
Shortcut keys step aside
On a blocks song, letter keys and the phone's section buttons still jump straight to a section, the chorus or the bridge.
On an arranged song, that becomes ambiguous. Which chorus? The second or the fourth? So on an arranged song the letter keys and section buttons go quiet, and say so. Up and down arrows are all you need, because the order is already decided.
On a blocks song, nothing changes at all.
See it before Sunday
The editor's preview now steps through the arrangement exactly as it will run, repeats included, in the theme you picked. You can check the whole flow at home on Saturday night instead of discovering the missing bridge on Sunday morning.
Who benefits
The volunteer at the screens. No more hunting for the second chorus. Next is next.
Singers and the band. The stage monitor and their phones follow the same order the projector does.
Worship leaders who arrange songs. Build the flow you rehearsed, and have it run the way you rehearsed it.
Being straight about it
Arrangements are per song, not per service. The order is saved on the song in your library. If a youth night sings it differently, duplicate the song for that version.
The band will still surprise you. A spontaneous extra chorus is not in the plan. Click the line in the Active Item list, or step back with the arrow. The sequence helps with the usual. It cannot predict the leader deciding to go round one more time, and I would not want it to.
It is not new as an idea. Arrangements have existed in presentation software for a long time. What I cared about was the order reaching every follower screen, and the shortcuts behaving honestly when it does.
Fixes that came with it
Three problems found in real runs, fixed:
- Stage monitor and singers' phones freezing on the first verse of an arranged song.
- The live line losing its place after a quick edit.
- The song list jumping back to the wrong chorus when a song repeats one.
Practical notes
Leave Blocks for songs sung as written. Not every song needs a sequence.
Arrange the songs your band always reorders. That is where the arrows save you the most.
Preview the arrangement once after building it. A missing repeat is easy to spot on Saturday.
Tell the singers. Once the stage monitor follows the arrangement, they can trust it.
Available now on every tier.