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Introduction
Welcome to E-Songster, the music database that will keep your music organized
and accessible! This is an awesome tool for music teachers and anyone else who
accesses their music regularly.
My name is Lisa Baydush. I’m a Jewish music educator and composer. My husband,
Lee, is the computer genius who wrote up this little program to help me stay organized
as I developed a vast music curriculum. Once I started telling people about it, the e-mails
started coming, pleading with Lee to make it available… so here it is, at long last!
What Can E-Songster Do?
Once you have set up your folders and coded your songs, E-Songster makes
finding those songs quick and easy. Here are a few examples:
♫ Need a song for a high school graduation? Simply apply a filter for
“graduation” songs and E-Songster will instantly bring up every song that
you have coded as such. Look through the records to find one that interests
you and click on “audio” to hear the song or “notated” to see the lead sheet.
♫ Leading a song-session and need to make a play-list for yourself and a songsheet to hand out to your students? Select all the songs you plan to sing,
and then generate the song-sheet (lyrics) and play-list (chords). After that,
format the pages as desired!
♫ Looking for songs for an upcoming holiday? Simply filter by that holiday or look
under “reports” for a list of holiday songs.
♫ Forget the name of a song, but remember the artist’s name? Search by composer!
♫ Want to find the chords to a song? Click on the “find” button, type in the name
of the song, and select the “chord” button to open the chord document.
♫ Need to transpose the guitar chords of a song to a different key? Open your
chord document and use the chord-shifter macro for instant chord transposing!
♫ Keep track of publication sources for your songs by listing the book or album
that they came from. That way when someone asks if you know where they can
find a song, you can tell them!
♫ Need to find a song containing a particular Psalm or Torah text? Filter by text
source!
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Caveat…
Like any database, it is only as good as the information you put into it. It takes time
to get your lead sheets, chord sheets, lyrics and recordings into folders. It takes
time to code the songs properly. BUT ONCE YOU DO, oh!, life gets so sweet!
Getting Started
Installing the program…
To install the program, put the CD into your CD drive; the install should start
automatically. If not, open Explorer and browse to the CD ROM drive. There will
be a program called “SetUp.Exe” or “SetUp” (depending on how your computer is
configured). Double-click on it to run the program. It will prompt you to locate the
“Songs” folder which is in a new “E-Songster” folder in your “My Documents”
folder. You will find the manual in pdf form there as well. After the install
completes, it will put a short-cut on your desktop to run the program.
Setting Up Folders…
Now you’re ready to get organized! If you’re like me, this is tremendously exciting.
If you’re like the rest of the world, this is scary and overwhelming. So take a deep
breath, I’ll walk you through this, nice and easy.
When you installed the program, it created a “Songs” folder in your “My Documents”
folder. Go ahead and open it and take a look. I provided a few songs to get you
started. As you can see, every song in the database has its own sub-folder in the
“Songs” folder.
Open the “Oseh Shalom” folder as an example. In the folder are four items:
“Oseh Shalom-chords,” “Oseh Shalom-lyrics,” “Oseh Shalom-notated” and
“Oseh Shalom-audio.” Ideally, this is what every song folder should contain,
and this is how you need to code your documents. The database is looking for
the “-chords” at the end of the name to indicate the chord-sheet, “-lyrics” to
indicate the lyrics, “-notated” to indicate a lead sheet and “-audio” to indicate a
recording. You can have more than one of each in a folder; the database will
prompt you to choose one when you want to look at the files (but more about that
later). It’s also okay to put other documents in the folder if you’d like. The
idea is to store everything in a way that makes it easy to find in the future.
Hopefully you already have documents and recordings in your computer. If so,
drag those folders into the “Songs” folder and re-name your documents and
recordings as described above. To make new folders, simply right click, select
“new,” then “folder,” and re-name the folder with the name of the song. If you have
several songs with the same name, such as “Oseh Shalom,” then my suggestion
is to name them with the artist’s last name, such as “Oseh Shalom, Baydush.”
Please note that folder names cannot be longer than 50 characters, and do not use
quotation marks.
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Once you have your folders created, open the E-Songster program by doubleclicking on the short-cut icon on your desktop or by selecting E-Songster from your
list of programs in the “Start Menu.” This graphic will appear briefly as the
program is opening, and then you will see the first record in the database.
Getting the Songs INTO the Database…
Not to worry, this is easy. Simply select the “utilities” tab at the top of the window
and click on “scan folders.” E-Songster will automatically bring in all of the new
songs from your “Songs” folder!
The songs will appear in alphabetical order with a “\” in front of the name. That
slash is there so that when you have a huge database of thousands of songs and
you scan for new folders, the new ones will appear at the beginning of the database (and not get lost in alphabet soup). Once you’ve coded the songs, just delete
the slash.
A Brief Overview of the Fields in each Record…
In database-land, a field isn’t green and a record isn’t broken. So before we
venture any further, a few definitions are in order. Think of the database as a filing
cabinet for your music. You’ve already filled the folders with lyrics and chords, etc.
The database is a place where you can retrieve the information you have filed.
Yes, you can certainly go directly to the “Songs” folder and find what you need,
but as the number of songs multiplies, you’ll find it easier and faster to use
E-Songster to access your information.
♫ Record – Continuing the analogy of the database as a filing cabinet, think
of each “record” as a manila file folder labeled with the name of one song.
So “Oseh Shalom” by Lisa Baydush is one record, and “Old MacDonald”
is another.
♫ Field – A “field” refers to the places in the record where you can input data,
such as the title of the song. E-Songster did that for you automatically when
it scanned for new folders. Other fields are “Composer,” “Publication,”
“Text Source,” and “Notes.”
♫ Button – “Buttons” allow you to access documents or recordings contained
in your song’s folder, or do some housekeeping like opening the folder
from within the database or deleting records. The “Find” and “Filter” buttons
let you sift through your records by name or category. Note that a grayed-out
button means the button is inactive; the colored buttons means there is a
corresponding file in the song’s folder.
♫ Tab – There are three “tabs” at the top of the window – “Songs,” “Reports” and
“Utilities.” When you click on them, a drop-down menu appears with various
choices, such as “Manage Lists” or “Scan folders.”
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♫ Category – This refers to the check-boxes that you select to code a song by its
applicability, such as its theme, associated holiday, and the age group for
whom it is most appropriate.
I’ll explain all of this in greater detail later. Right now, it’s time to do some coding!
Coding the Songs…
There are three boxes filled with categories for coding songs by how they are used:
“Themes,” “Holidays,” and “Grades.” These categories allow you to filter through
the database for a specific type of song, and are what makes the E-Songster so
useful!
♫ Themes – Select the theme(s) appropriate to the song.
♫ Holidays – Select the holiday(s) appropriate to the song. This is where you can
add life-cycle events as categories, such as graduations and b’nai mitzvah.
♫ Grades – This is a useful way to distinguish the songs based on the age groups
with which you would sing them. I also use this as a place for “other”
categories, such as “Want to Learn This Song” and “Favorites.”
Some songs may have applicability to several themes, holidays and grades. In this
example, you can see that I have coded “Oseh Shalom” as a “Jewish” “Prayer” with
the theme of “Shalom,” appropriate for “Shabbat Evening” and “Shabbat Morning”
services.
The more specific you are, the more useful the categories will be. For example, if
you are compiling a playlist for a Shabbat morning service, it is not helpful to have
a general “Shabbat” category because then you have to weed through liturgy that
doesn’t pertain to that particular service. On the other hand, if you don’t lead
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services, then this might not be an important distinction for you. Likewise, if you
teach a specific set of songs at each grade level, then a detailed list of “Grade”
categories would be more useful than the list provided.
The categories that are provided are merely suggestions. Customize it to suit your
needs; delete the ones you don’t need and create new ones. To add a theme,
holiday or grade, right-click on the box and choose “Add.” Type a category name
and choose “OK.” To move the category up or down the list, use the arrow button
to the right of the box. To edit or delete a category, select the category, then rightclick and choose “Edit” or “Delete.”
Using E-Songster
E-Songster is very user-friendly. Most things are fairly obvious, so I think you’ll get the
hang of it immediately. But just in case you need some help, stick with me; I’ll be your
tour-guide. Here’s a quick overview of all the fields and buttons in a record…
Songs tab offers a
second way to do all
that the buttons do.
Reports tab lets
you access reports
and generate lists.
Utilities tab
lets you scan
for new folders.
Composer
Button to
open the
song’s folder.
Title of song
Button to
assign a
folder to
a new record.
Buttons to
access chordand lyricdocuments.
Button to
delete a
record from
the database,
as well as a
folder from
the “Songs”
folder.
Button to
access
recording
of song.
Button to
access lead
sheets.
A place for
miscellaneous
notes.
Button to add
song to an
existing list.
Buttons by
which to sort
the database.
Buttons to
apply or clear
a filter.
Buttons to
move from
record to
record. The
“|” and “|”
move to you
the first or last
record.
Click on an alphabet letter
to move quickly to songs
that start with that letter.
Filter
categories:
Themes,
Holidays
Grades.
Find a song by title,
composer, publication
or text source. Find
next or previous song.
Text source for the song,
such as Psalms, Pirkei Avot,
Torah, etc.
Publication or album where
you found the song or lead
sheet, for future reference.
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To Find a Song…
1. Click on the “Find” button.
2. Type the song title into the
“Search text” field in the
“Find” window that appears.
(Note that you may also search
for a composer, publication or
text source.)
3. Click “OK.”
4. The first record with that title will
appear. Select “Find Next” to
find the next song by that name.
Select “Find Previous” to go back
to a previous song by that name.
Chords, Lyrics, Audio, Notated…
1. To view chords, lyrics or lead sheets, click on the corresponding button and the
documents will open in the appropriate word-processing or graphics program
on your computer.
2. To listen to a recording of the song, click on “Audio,” and the song will play in
whatever multi-media program you have on your computer.
3. If you have more than one song
with the same coding, such as
“-chords,” a dialog box will
appear asking you to select which
document you wish to open.
Click on the correct document
and select “OK.”
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Filters…
You apply filters when you want to see
songs that share the same category.
Click on the “Filter” button; select the category by which you wish to filter the
database and “Apply Filter.” Let’s use the Chanukah example to take you step
by step through the filtering process.
1. Click on the “Filter” button; select “Chanukah;” select “Apply Filter.”
2. Now, the only songs showing up in the database are songs that have been
coded for “Chanukah.”
3. To move from record to record, click on the little triangle which you find at the
bottom left of the screen (below the Filter buttons, next to the word “Record”).
To move quickly to another part of the alphabet, click on the alphabet letters,
or choose “Find” to find a specific song.
E-Songster
is showing the
first of 105
records coded
for Chanukah.
This button moves you
to the next record.
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That was a simple filter using only one category, Chanukah. But suppose you
wanted to find Chanukah songs for preschoolers. In that case, you select both
“Chanukah” from the “Holidays” box and “Tot” from the “Grades” box.
This filter is
more specific; it
narrows the search
from 105 to 32
records coded for
Chanukah and Tots.
Light Eight Candles
is the 15th song
alphabetically in
this filter.
Likewise, you could do a search for Chanukah blessings by selecting “Chanukah”
from the “Holidays” box and “Blessing/Prayer” from the “Themes” box.
Another filter option is to filter by “Songlist.” This is useful if you have made a list
for an event and want to see just those records in the database; this allows you to
listen to the audio, adjust the key of the guitar chords, take a look at the notation, etc.
To get out of the filter mode, you have two choices: you can either click on the
“Clear Filter” button or, if you are already in the “Filter” window, select “Remove
Filter.”
Sort By…
E-Songster automatically defaults to an alphabetical sort by “Title.” When you first
create a record for a song title beginning with “A” or “The,” the program will ask if
you want to move that word to the end of the title (example: “A Blessing for Shalom”
becomes “Blessing for Shalom, A” and is then alphabetized under “B”).
To sort by any of the other fields in the “Sort By” box, simply select another category.
Make sure you are consistent with how you list the “Composer,” “Publication” and
“Text Source” from record to record.
Housekeeping…
Sorry, it doesn’t do windows! Hahaha! Get it, Windows/windows?
Okay, on with the tour…
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The three buttons under the “Composer” field – “Open Folder,” “Select Folder,”
and “Delete Record” – allow you to do some basic housekeeping for your database.
♫ Open Folder – select this button to open a song’s folder.
♫ Select Folder – this allows you to link a new record with a folder. You would only
do this if you hadn’t scanned for new folders and wanted to create a record
manually.
♫ Delete Record – select this button if you wish to delete a record from the
Songster. A dialog box will appear, asking if you are sure (yes/no); if you say
“yes,” another box will appear asking if you wish to also delete the folder.
Use the “Notes” field to store miscellaneous information.
Reports and Lists…
E-Songster helps you create reports quickly and easily!
Click on the “Report” tab at the top of the window and a
drop-down menu will appear offering you four choices –
“Manage Lists,” “Generate Lists,” “Songs by Holiday”
and “Songs by Theme.”
♫ Manage Lists – Add, edit and delete lists of songs for song-sheets and play-lists.
Select “Manage Lists.” This window will appear:
1. To make a new list, right-click in the “List” box and choose “add,” or select the
“New List” button. Enter a name and select “OK.” Now go to the list of songs
on the right. You may apply a filter if you wish. When you click on a song you
want to add to your list, the “Add to List” button will become enabled. When
you select the “Add to List” button, the song will appear in the “Songs in List”
box in the center of the window. Put the songs in order by using the arrow keys.
2. To edit an existing list, select the list, then right-click and choose “edit.” You
can also add songs to a list from the song’s record without needing to go to
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the “Reports” tab – simply click on the “Add to Song-List” button located to
the left of the alphabet letters to add that song to an existing list.
3. To delete a list, select the list, then right-click and choose “delete.”
♫ Generate Lists – Generate a song-sheet or play-list.
1. Select “Generate List.”
2. A window will appear with the list of lists.
Select the list you wish to generate, and
then select whether you wish to make a
“Playlist,” “Songsheet,” or both.
3. Click on the “Generate” button.
E-Songster will create your list in the word
processing program on your computer.
There will be page breaks between songs.
If you don’t have a file for a song in your
folders, the document will provide a note:
“chord file missing for…”
4. Now format your list!
♫ Songs by Holiday – View a list of songs for every holiday.
1. Click on “Songs by Holiday” to see a list of all of your holiday songs.
2. A window will appear with all of the songs and composers, by holiday.
3. To export this list to a word-processing or pdf document, click on the
“Report” tab and choose the appropriate icon.
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♫ Songs by Theme – View a list of
songs divided by theme.
1. Click on “Songs by Theme” to
see a list of songs as they relate
to themes based on your filter
categories.
2. A window will appear with all
of the songs and composers,
by theme.
3. To export this list to a wordprocessing or pdf document,
click on the “Report” tab and
choose the appropriate icon.
Chord-Shifter Macro
This macro only works in Microsoft Word. You will need to install it separately by
putting the E-Songster CD in your CD-ROM drive and “exploring” the CD. Doubleclick on the document, ”ChordShifter Installer,” and it will automatically install the
Chord-Shifter macro. If it comes up with a security warning, “enable” the macro.
When it is finished installing, a message box will appear indicating that the chord
shifter was installed. Click okay to get rid of the message box, and close the
document.
Chord-Shifter is one nifty little tool! With the click of a button, you can INSTANTLY
transpose the chords to a song. The key to this is formatting your chords in a
particular way so that the macro knows how to differentiate chords from letters.
Guitar players typically put chords above the words:
C
G7
C
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb,
G7
C
Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.
To use Chord-Shifter, chords need to be formatted with brackets on either side:
[C]Mary had a little lamb, [G7]little lamb, [C]little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb, its [G7]fleece was white as [C]snow.
This is actually a useful formatting style because when you change fonts or wrap the
text differently, the chords don’t shift around as they do when the chords are typed
above the words.
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To transpose this song to a different key, open the chord document. Select the “View”
tab and then “View Macro” from the drop-down menu.
This “Macro” window will
appear. Select “ChordShifter”
and click on the “Run” button.
This window will appear:
Simply type in the number of
half-steps by which you wish
to adjust the key (negative
numbers are fine too). For
example, a shift of 7 half-steps changes the key of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” from
“C” to “G.” Your changes are not
permanent until you save the document.
So you can continue to shift the key until
you find the one that works best for you.
[G]Mary had a little lamb,
[D7]little lamb, [G]little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,
its [D7]fleece was white as [G]snow.
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User Tips
♫ Edits to a generated list… When you are making a play-list or song-sheet and find
an edit you want to make to the chords or lyrics, DO NOT make them to the
GENERATED list. Go back to the record in E-Songster and make the change there,
and then re-generate the list. That way the NEXT time you generate a list with that
song, the information will be accurate.
♫ How I handle piggy-back songs… Perhaps you’re wondering why I have four
different song titles for chord documents in my “Old MacDonald” folder (see
diagram on page 6). This is how I handle all parodies or piggy-back songs (songs
with alternative lyrics to existing songs). I store them in the original song’s folder,
and code the database for each of the categories that apply. Because I have several
songs to the tune of “Old MacDonald,” I have several chord and lyric documents in
the folder. This song is coded for “Animals,” “Parashat-Noah,” “Seasons” and
“Transportation.” I find it easier this way than making each piggy-back song its
own record, but you could certainly do it that way and it would, in fact, work better
for song-sheet and play-list generating.
♫ Chords… I often transpose songs and simplify chords to suit my vocal and playing
level. I save THAT document as “title-chords” and save the original chords as “titlechords-original.” This way when I generate play-lists, my preferred chord document
is the one that the database accesses, but I still have the original in the folder in case
I want to use it one day.
♫ Turning a playlist into a songsheet… A quick way to turn an existing playlist into a
songsheet without having to go back to the database is to run a “Wildcard” macro in
Microsoft Word. First save your playlist as a songsheet so you don’t overwrite your
playlist! Then under the “Home” tab, select “Replace.” In the “Find what” field, type:
\[*\]. (No period.) Click on the “More” button and select “Use wildcards.” Then click
“Replace All.” It will remove all of the chords from the document!
♫ Here are a few ways I have used the “Notes” field:
 For a songster I made for my students, I numbered each song to make it easy for
them to find songs quickly. I put the song number in the “Notes” field so that I
could reference the song-number easily as well.
 When I find a video or an audio clip of a song on-line, I put the URL (web
address) in the “Notes” field so that I can easily access it again in the future.
 This is a good place to store interesting history about a song.
 This is a secondary place where you can put lyrics for immediate reference.
Contact Information
We hope you find this so easy to use that you never need help, but just in case, here is
our contact information, below. Please help us make this program better and better
by sharing your comments and suggestions, and by letting us know about any issues
you are experiencing with the database. Have fun getting organized!
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For how-to help and to share
comments and suggestions,
please contact Lisa at
[email protected]
For technical assistance,
contact Lee at
[email protected]
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