Tag: online religion

Copyright free hymns

For me, the biggest stumbling block for livestreaming worship services has always been copyright issues.

Especially troublesome are hymns.

Many of the most popular hymn tunes are protected by copyright. Even if a tune is in the public domain, the arrangement may be copyrighted (and it can be difficult to find out if the arrangement is, in fact, copyrighted). Even if the arrangement is copyrighted, some people will claim copyright for their typesetting of the hymn. If a hymn is protected in any way under copyright, you’re not supposed to photocopy or project or electronically disseminate the printed version of the hymn; if any part of the music is protected under copyright, you’re not supposed to broadcast audio of it. No, not even if you own hymnals with the hymn: owning a hymnal just allows you to use the hymn in an in-person event such as an in-person worship service.

The solution to this problem: copyright free hymns.

For the past few years, I’ve been collecting copyright free hymns and spiritual songs. I have huge disorganized files (both electronic and hard copy) of public domain tunes and texts and arrangements. I’ve pulled many songs from the great early African American collections, including Slave Songs of the U.S. (1868), the Fisk Jubilee Singers songbook (1873), and Cabin and Plantation Songs, assembled by the Hampton Institute (1901). Although most of the hymns I’ve found are Christian, I’ve also found some good hymns and songs with Buddhist, Jewish, Neo-Pagan, Ethical Culture, or secular content. All the hymns I’ve found would be suitable for use in a Unitarian Universalist worship service; indeed, many of them are public domain versions of hymns in our current hymnal that are protected by copyright in some way.

I’ve just put 24 of these copyright free hymns and spiritual songs in a Google Drive folder here.

I’ll put a list of the songs currently in the folder below. And I’ll be adding more copyright free hymns and spiritual songs as I find time to produce fair copies of the versions I have.

Update, 1/18/2022: I’ve more than doubled the number of hymns and spiritual songs in the Google Drive folder. List of the songs has been moved to a new blog post titled “More copyright-free hymns.”

Adventures in livestreaming

In Santa Clara County, gatherings of more than 50 people have been banned, and if you have gatherings smaller than that you have to keep people 6 feet apart. So guess what? We’re livestreaming our Sunday services!

It’s been fun figuring out how to livestream our services, and I thought I’d share some of the highlights.

Last Sunday, Ann and Dox set up the simplest livestreaming system possible: Ann mounted her iPhone on a tripod, logged into Zoom, and that was our livestream. As you’d expect, audio was mediocre, but it wasn’t terrible. And we avoided copyright issues by only giving access to the livestream to our members and friends (and NOT recording the stream). Ann’s system worked, showing that anyone with a smart phone can livestream their Sunday services. This Sunday, we’ll continue with that simplest livestreaming system possible.

What if you want to go a step up in quality over what the smartphone can provide? Well, I tried setting up with a pretty good quality webcam attached to my laptop, but the audio was so poor it wasn’t worth pursuing. So the next step up means having about $2,000 worth of hardware on hand.

So this Sunday, in addition to Ann’s system, we’re going to add a livestreaming option that will take that next step up in quality. We’ll have a prosumer camcorder (worth $1200) mounted on a tripod ($130), with a wireless omnidirectional mic with the receiver attached to the camcorder and the mic set up right in front of the preacher ($400; thanks, Dox, for lending us this mic). The audio and video feed from the camcorder will get run through a Magewell USB Capture HDMI ($300) directly into my laptop, where I’ll be pushing it into Zoom.

Since we plan to handle joys and sorrows through the Zoom chat feature, Greg will be sitting 6 feet away from me with a second laptop; he’ll be managing the participants as they log in to Zoom, and then scanning the chat for joys and sorrows. We’ll have a third volunteer, Carmela, whom people can call on her phone for support if they have a hard time logging in to Zoom.

As you’d expect, we did a dry run this afternoon, with several people logged into a test Zoom meeting. Our testers uncovered all kinds of problems. The shotgun mic we had provided inadequate sound, and that’s when Dox lent us his wireless omni mic. The internet connection was unstable, so we wired my laptop directly into the wifi mesh using an Ethernet cable. The camera angle we had originally was not so good, so we moved both the camera and the pulpit.

It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. In fact, I had a blast, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow! I’ve wanted to do livestreaming for a long time, partly so we can reach people who are traveling or who are ill or shut in, and partly because I love helping produce video. If COVID-19 is a cloud, this has definitely been the silver lining for me.

Coming soon: Adventures in online learning — Highlights of how we’re setting up online Sunday school.

Update: Sunday, March 15, 6:26 p.m.: Problem One: Livestreaming with our second option went pretty well … during the second service. During the first service, the audio committee tried to set up the regular wireless mics we use during the service (so they could record the service, and broadcast it on campus), but their wireless mics caused interference with our livestreaming set-up meaning audio quality was poor. That problem was solved for the second service by switching to wired mics for the sound board. Then our audio was fine, except that we had turned on the wrong audio compression setting in Zoom and while voice was great, piano sounded terrible.

Problem two: Ann’s Zoom feed went well, with decent audio and video. But we had a LOT more participants this time, and she had a hard time muting everyone. Next week, we’ll probably have to get her a cohost.

Successes: We had about 35 log-ins at the 9:30 service, and about 70 log-ins at the 11:00 service. Assuming there were 1.5 humans per log-in, we probably served 150 people; that’s pretty close to our usual Sunday service participation. We had a bit of a “social hour” after each service, and Amy got to chat with anyone who stuck around in the Zoom conferences. Amy preached a killer sermon, perfect for the times. And we had a couple of people log in who now live beyond driving distance, and who said how pleased they were to be able to finally “attend” a UUCPA service again.

What kind of online religion do you do?

I’ll be spending the coming week exploring Web-based religious participation, and I’m hoping that you, my readers, will be willing to help me out by answering one or more of the questions below.

(A) Which of the following do you consider yourself:

  1. Digital Native (you don’t remember a time before the Internet)
  2. Digital Immigrant (you feel fully at home in the Internet)
  3. Digital Alien (you have your green card, but you don’t feel fluent in the language and customs)
  4. Digital Tourist (the Internet is a place you visit, but you don’t live here)

(B) Aside from reading (this blog)(my Facebook feed), which of the following ways do you access religious content online online? (I also ask for specific examples of each kind of content, but if you don’t have the time to get specific, I’d still love to know which types of content, if any, you access.)

  1. Looking at a congregation’s Web site, or a denomination’s Web site (please list one or more)
  2. Reading sacred texts (Bible, Qu’ran, etc.) online (please specify which ones)
  3. Reading religious blogs online (please name some)
  4. Watching videos with religious content online (please describe one you remember)
  5. Listening to sermon podcasts online (please say who was preaching)
  6. Listening to religious music, broadly defined, online (please name some performers, composers, and/or songs/works)
  7. Taking classes in religion or religious topics online (please describe one or more)
  8. Looking at religious content online with your children (please specify)
  9. Other (please specify)

(C) Any general comments about online religious content?

If you’ve never commented before, I’d really love to hear your answers to one or more of the above questions. Even if you don’t access any other online religious content, I’d still love to know that. Thanks in advance for your assistance!