Progress update

The current plan is to publish two separate hymnals: the first with traditional hymns (including some with new wordings) and some original songs written more recently, and the second dedicated to Emma Smith's selection of hymns.

The first hymnal is coming along with 61 hymns already in the current draft and dozens more being prepared for inclusion. There has been some difficulty fidgeting with multiple music editing programs and standardizing the format of sheet music coming from different softwares. There are also some songs that are taking a long time because of the difficulty of doing a good job producing sheet music by ear from an audio recording.

After Denver posted an announcement on his blog, more people have been reached out with gratitude, suggestions, songs, and offers to help. It is nice to know that people are interested in the project and the help given has been a blessing. Not all songs and suggestions are able to be included due to copyright issues and whatnot. Please don't submit songs unless they are either original songs or public domain. Also, the idea is to not be copying directly from the LDS hymn book. If you have favorite LDS hymns that are public domain, if you could create a new arrangement or at least change the key before submitting them that would be great. All submissions to be included in the first book need to be received before May 1st otherwise they will be put on a list for a future volume.

The second hymnal is still in the beginning phases. Emma worked on multiple different hymnbooks throughout her life including after Joseph was killed. It is is going to be a considerable amount of work to put sheet music to the 300+ hymns that she selected over the years. If you have skills with music notation software and would like to help with this, please reach out.