Virtual Keyboard Seeks Hymns

March 12, 2010

With Easter right around the corner, more and more people are probably getting hymn tunes stuck in their heads.

Humming a tune is one thing, but remembering the words that go along with that melody may seem more difficult. This Lenten season a new Web site, Hymnary.org, is making it much easier for hymn enthusiasts to pin down a tune.

This is happening through The Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) at Calvin College, which has launched a comprehensive online hymn database, allowing site visitors to track down a tune by playing a "virtual keyboard." The keyboard was developed by Calvin junior Nat Burns, a computer science and music major.

Hymnary.org currently houses approximately 5,000 hymnals and 28,000 hymn tunes. It also has thousands of media files, including MIDIs, mp3s, notation files and sheet music.

The virtual keyboard, believed to be a one-of-a-kind search engine, allows visitors to identify a hymn by playing a few notes of it. The system then searches nearly 3,000 indexed hymn tunes, using a sophisticated linear-programming algorithm, to find approximate matches for the tune.

Harry Plantinga, a computer science professor at Calvin College and director of CCEL, conceived and helped develop Hymnary.org. He says that this new site advances the CCEL mission of offering world-wide access to classic Christian literature.

"Hymns enlighten and move us in ways the written word cannot," said Plantinga. "It is important for worship leaders, scholars, researchers and others to be able to access and use them."

Other features of the site include the ability to search for and print lyrics; view, play, transpose and print scores; listen to audio files; read hymn stories and author biographies; download and upload arrangements; discuss and ask questions and search by many criteria.

Hymnary.org is jointly sponsored by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library and Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. For more information on Hymnary.org, contact Nyna Sykes at 616-526-8845.See full story: Calvin Hymnary.