I play the mandolin, recorder, and ocarina mostly.
Lead Sheets (Melody and Chords)
Sheet Music
- Hymnary.org - Has scans from millions of hymns. Can search by tunes, by meter, by songs.
- Musescore.org
Psalters
- Cgmusic.com - Has many renditions of all of Psalms put to English meter and rhyme. Also, if you don’t know much about how meter in poetry works they have a great page on that. Basically if you know the meter of a hymn or song you can swap the tune or lyrics with any other song that also has that meter.
Ukulele
I wrote a beginner’s guide to playing hymns.
Recorder
I wrote a beginner’s guide to playing hymns on the recorder.
I also wrote a blog post about why they’re amazing.
Ocarina
For the most part I don’t really like ocarinas, but the Coda flute has replaced the recorder as my favorite wind instrument. It’s way more portable and ergonomic and easier to play. At $60 it’s not as inexpensive, but for the innovation and quality of this instrument it’s worth it. It’s made by a guy in the US who developed his own manufacturing process to build them.
Beginner Songs
- Nothing But the Blood
- Down At the Cross
- Amazing Grace
- O Thou Fount
- Be Thou My Vision
Apps
- Basichords has chord references for most string instruments and tunings.
- Vocal Pitch Monitor is great for tuning or just messing around.
- Songbook is for organizing lyrics for most hymns and worship music.
- Rhyming Dictionary helps with writing poetry in meter because it will tell you the stress of syllables.