A Lower Songbook

I love The Army songbook! Or maybe I should say- I love the songs in The Army songbook- well, you know what I mean. However, I do have a real problem with it. Or maybe I should say the music to the songs in The Songbook? Yeah, that's the problem (confused you enough yet?). Why is it so many of the songs are so high? I once bought a large print songbook, hoping it would also be in a lower key! No such luck.

I am not an accomplished soprano and most people I know are not either. It's extremely difficult to keep a good spiritual atmosphere when singing and people are straining and squeaking (or not straining and squeaking because they are not singing at all)! I don't care to count how many times I've been in a prayer meeting trying to bring seekers to the altar and the situation just becomes funny, with all the straining, completely ruining the mood.

Now I am a musician and I understand that the music is arranged so the brass band can accompany the singing in an easy enough key. But I also know it's not really that difficult to make them both happen at the same time (decent key and low enough for unstrained singing).

This is a real unfortunate blooper that could have been corrected a few years ago when we re-did the songbook and tune books. Now I know a fix won't happen tomorrow, but it should at least be acknowledged so we can set our sights on a fix some day.

Is anybody out there who can get this situation to the right people, to make this go away some day? Who's up for an email-writing campaign?