Since it’s Easter Sunday morning, I wanted to take a look at the piano sheet music available for Chris Tomlin’s worship song “I will rise”, and also mention some of the advantages of purchasing digital sheet music rather than printed materials.

There are a couple of options for I will rise sheet music on MyLiszt.com, both from musicnotes.com.

• Piano sheet music plus guitar chords and vocals – The first version of the I will rise sheet music is a standard piano sheet music score, with a vocal line above, and then guitar chords written in above the stave. This is a great all-purpose version of the sheet music, which can easily be played on piano or guitar, or used as a basis for improvisation by a “color” instrument such as the cello. You’re never going to find explicit cello sheet music for worship or contemporary songs, but if you have a clear set of piano sheet music, like this arrangement, a good cello player will be able to play the bass line, the melody, or an improvised harmony line based off what is written in the piano sheet music.
• Guitar sheet music plus vocals – This version is definitely guitar sheet music rather than piano sheet music, although a good piano player would probably be able to play from it. For guitarists, this version has two main advantages over the previous set of piano sheet music: 1. it has the guitar tab written out in the score, and 2. each identified guitar chord shows the fingerings – in-line with the music. The previous piano version listed the chords (e.g. Em7) in the music, and had a little table at the top showing the fingerings for each chord that’s used (which is great), but the guitar sheet music version goes a step further by showing the fingerings for each chord as it needs to be played. On the downside, a pianist playing from this score is presented only with the vocal melody line and a right-hand – they’d need to figure out the left-hand from the written chords. I’d say this version is slightly less helpful for a solo instrumentalist – if you had a cello in your band, and wanted cello sheet music for them to play, a good cello player could use this, but it wouldn’t be as easy as the piano sheet music version above.

Looking at these two versions, it’s also worth noticing a couple of advantages that you have with any digital sheet music from musicnotes.com compared to printed sheet music.

1. You can listen to the music before you buy it – musicnotes.com has a play button on their preview page, so if you want to listen to the piano sheet music version above, you can just click the play button, and you’ll hear a MIDI rendering of the written score. This may be helpful to non-musicians or beginning musicians who can’t tell from looking at the piano sheet music whether or not they’ve found what they’re looking for.
2. You can transpose the music to a different key – this is really valuable. A lot of popular songs (including worship songs) are sung by men with high voices – if you’ve ever tried to sing along with Chris Tomlin when he sings I Will Rise you’ll probably discover that it’s pretty high for the average Joe. So it’s really helpful to be able to get a version of the piano sheet music in a lower key, which is easier for the typical church congregation (and church worship band) to play and sing. You’ll also notice, looking at the first piano sheet music version listed above, that the default key is B major, which has 5 sharps – enough to strike fear into the heart of many a pianist. By transposing the music down a half-tone (using the link to the right of the music) you can switch to Bb major, which at 2 flats is a much easier key to play. One side note on this – if you transpose the piece, it looks like you lose the guitar chord fingerings from the piano sheet music version, and on the guitar sheet music you don’t have the option to transpose. So that’s something to watch out for – it looks like musicnotes.com doesn’t yet have the power to transpose guitar fingerings or guitar tab, but for regular piano and vocal parts that’s a really neat feature.

That’s all for this morning – it only remains to wish you a Happy Easter. I’m off to a 7.30am worship band rehearsal at church, where we’ll be singing (you guessed it) I Will Rise, by Chris Tomlin.

Tags: Bass Line, Cello Player, Cello Sheet Music, Chris Tomlin, Contemporary Songs, Digital Sheet Music, Easter Sunday, Guitar Chord, Guitar Chords, Guitar Sheet Music, Melody Line, Music Score, Music Version, Piano Player, Piano Sheet Music, Piano Version, Sheet Music Guitar, Vocal Line, Vocal Melody, Worship Song
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