Thanks to all that have come to www.thecatholichymnal.com and purchased a book. You have been very helpful.

The impetus behind this project is not for us to publish collections of old hymns. That was an exploration into something larger that we are continuing to develop.

Simply, we are creating a hymnal that you will be able to order including only the music that you want. That way you can put the existing music that your people sing (in our case at SJN, about 43 hymns and songs from OCP Breaking Bread, including On Eagles Wings for funerals that just have to have it) into the hymnal and then add all the music they should be singing.

This can be a good way to make the transition from whatever you have got to a new book, without having to deal with two books, one stuffed full of songs you don't need. Your book will be created and either soft or hardbound. The printer is an old music printing firm that is already creating a popular music series using this same format, so they have already worked out the kinks and this has really helped to facilitate the project.

So you may have your entire hymnal, including portions of or the entire the Parish Book of Chant since it published in Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 [thanks from us all to MUSICA SACRA for creating this book]. And your choice of Psalms from any source, including the ever-popular Chabanel Psalms.

We have an experienced copyright staff member who was employed in this area by a major music publisher to handle any and all copyrights as required.

This book will be, under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, very non-restrictive, whenever possible.

For example, if you purchase any of our current books, the Eucharistic Hymnal or Hymns to Mary or the Anthology that includes them, the duplication permissions are rather liberal. If you purchase the less-expensive download of any of these, you have full rights to copy and duplicate as needed. In the printed books we ask that you email us for permissions, though in reprintings this will be further liberalized. Some of the arrangements in the books are copyright by our staff, but you have blanket permission to copy even these as needed.

[If your hymnal includes copyright material of your choice, we handle the permission search and filing. This music will almost always not be free for you to copy, but we have faith that you will comply with the copyright laws as they apply.]

Anyhow, we are in the final stages of getting this rolling and I wanted this group to get advance notice.