Song import format

Hello,

I am new to Proclaim, and I am in the trial mode to see if it will work with our church services.

I am in the process of determining if I can import the OpenSong songs into Proclaim.

Could someone tell me what the standard format is for the songs?

I notice that there are song lyric examples with "verse 1", "chorus" etc. tags that will properly format for verses and choruses.

Is there a list of these tags so I know how to format the songs for import? We have over 1000 songs in OpenSong I will need to import, and I don't want to have to make manual changes to the songs.

Some of the tags we use in OpenSong are '[C]' for choruses, which I can replace with the word 'chorus', but we have a large number of songs that have other tags such as '[c1]', '[bridge]', '[end]' etc.

Is there a list of the supported tags so I can prepare my import? I can't seem to find a list anywhere.

Thanks... Proclaim is looking pretty good on the surface, so I look forward to diving in to see if it will be able to run our services.

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Mike Binks

Hello Ron.

Is there a list of the supported tags so I can prepare my import? I can't seem to find a list anywhere.

In order to get the answer to your question I put 'Proclaim Tags for Verses' into Google and got this result...

Choosing the second link and looking at the bottom of the page gave me this advice...

Editing/Adding Songs to the database

There are some automatically-generated and recognized tags, such as chorus, verse or bridge.
Also, you can create your own custom tags by surrounding the tag by square brackets, like this: [tag], [vamp], etc

One thing to note is that you do not need the square brackets in the order list.

Ron Manke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/586614#Comment_586614

Thanks, this is useful. It implies I shouldn't have to do anything to import OpenSong songs? Most OpenSong songs using a bracket structure for the song lyrics.

I still have been unable to find out the "official" list of tags supported by Proclaim. Is this not published anywhere? I would have thought this would have been important information in the documentation for Proclaim. Even a sample song with all of the tags demonstrated would be extremely useful.

Another problem I see is that OpenSong also stores chords. These are defined using a 'period' at the beginning of a tag.

How are they handled in Proclaim?

I could just experiment and figure it out on my own, but I also don't want other people to encounter the same information gap and spend time searching for the same solutions without official help from the Proclaim developers.

I am going to try to import our songs and see what problems I encounter. I will try to document any issues in this thread so other people can learn.

Thanks everyone for your help! I am excited about trying to get Proclaim to work for our church.

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/586966#Comment_586966

I am going to try to import our songs and see what problems I encounter. I will try to document any issues in this thread so other people can learn.

Thanks everyone for your help! I am excited about trying to get Proclaim to work for our church.

Ron

Are these songs unique in some way? Own compositions or something?

Any that are licensed by CCL are easy to include - you just type in the first line and up they pop.

Much easier than playing with other software!

Ron Manke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/587046#Comment_587046

There are a few songs written by our worship team that won't be in CCLI. Also, sometimes our worship team will do medleys of different songs, so we create special songs for these.

I am not worried about those, mostly the songs that have chords which have special formatting.

Also, OpenSong stores the songs in XML which includes the metadata for the formatting of the text.

Here's a sample OpenSong song:

<lyrics>[v1]
Amazing grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind but now I see so clearly
[C]
Hallelujah,
Grace like rain falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains
are washed away, washed away
[v2]
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed
[v3]
When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We've no less days to sing Your praise
Than when we first begun
</lyrics>

The ones with chords look like this. (Opensong ignores the lyric text that starts the row with a period so it knows they are chords):

<lyrics>[V]
.G C Dsus C
Every move I make, I make in You: You make me move, Jesus,
.G C Dsus C
Every breath I take, I breathe in You;
.G C Dsus C
Every step I take, I take in You: You are my way, Jesus,
.G C Dsus C
Every breath I take, I breathe in You.

[C]
.G Am7 Bm7 C D
Waves of mercy, waves of grace,
.G Am7 Bm7 C D7sus G
Everywhere I look I see Your face;
.G Am7 Bm7 C D7sus
Your love has captured me,
.G Am7 Bm7 C D7sus G C Dsus C
O my God, this love, how can it be?

[B]
_
_
_
.G C
La, la, la, la, la, la, la
.D C
</lyrics>

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/587059#Comment_587059

Looks like copying to 'Text Edit' and then a couple of cycles of 'Find and Replace' will be your best bet.

Change < to [

Change >[ to 'nothing'

Change the coffee and the beer to the real thing.

Then drop the cleaned up file into Proclaim - as there are not many of these to process it should not take too much time.

Drink the coffee before the service and the beer afterwards.

Ron Manke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/587158#Comment_587158

Ya, thanks! That looks like the most optimal solution.

Who knows... if I have some time I might have to make a converter.