Why no hymn lyrics on screen this general conference?

Why aren't we seeing the hymn lyrics on screen during the congregational hymns today (Apr 1) during general conference? That was very helpful, especially when trying to sing in a dark chapel. Anyone know the reason?

I noticed they updated the format of subtitles in general (for example, speakers' names have a blue banner now). I'm guessing the lack of hymn lyrics was something to do with this change; maybe switching over to a new system that isn't fully-featured yet.

Curious... they had the capability to show the text of President Monson's talk in the Priesthood Session, but not the lyrics for the congregational hymn. Of course, "you" should know the lyrics to Redeemer of Isreal by now. I too suspect they've got a new system they're working with. I didn't see if there were hymn lyrics on the monitors inside The Conference Center. I had thought to turn on the lights, especially for the Afternoon Session. No one in the building even remotely knew that hymn. You could have heard a pin drop, but for the sound system. The problem with turning on the lights, our FM group issued consumer projector's display would fade to white.

Let's hope the Sunday session's congregational hymns are super familiar. (ie "I Am A Child of God" or "Love At Home")

They were missing from the Women's General Session last week, as well.

This needs to be quickly corrected. We thougjt in our chapel that maybe we were not hooked up correctly.

Apparently we fixed it here. If you are connecting to the broadcast by the satellite dish, you need to switch to Internet Only, whatever that means.

I was saddened the text to hymns missing. Hopefully this will be restored by the October conference. We love to sing along from home, and the text for the less familiar hymns is extremely helpful. Additionally, because it is a worldwide broadcast, many non-members also view our beloved confetence sessions.

WBMcA wrote:If you are connecting to the broadcast by the satellite dish, you need to switch to Internet Only, whatever that means.

Can you give more details?

Fun Conference Fact:
We are no longer broadcasting the lyrics to the Congregational Hymn. Why, you ask?
All the world receives the same video feed. We then add over 90 live languages to that video. In a global church, it no longer makes sense to have everyone view the English lyrics on their screen.
So grab your Hymnal, or check out the LDS Music app and sing along in whichever language you prefer! Happy Sunday Morning! #ldsconf

thekeck wrote:Fun Conference Fact:
We are no longer broadcasting the lyrics to the Congregational Hymn. Why, you ask?
All the world receives the same video feed. We then add over 90 live languages to that video. In a global church, it no longer makes sense to have everyone view the English lyrics on their screen.
So grab your Hymnal, or check out the LDS Music app and sing along in whichever language you prefer! Happy Sunday Morning! #ldsconf

Then... announce the hymn#, or use a lower third graphic.

thekeck wrote:All the world receives the same video feed.

I'm not sure as that's completely true. I wouldn't be a bit surprised but what different satellites got different feeds. With the new Cisco boxes for the church system, there could be more feeds. (In the old system, there was one video with multiple audio tracks. But with the Cisco box, you have one channel for each language pair. How that translates on the back end, I'm not sure.)

However, this change may be an outgrowth of restructuring the video feeds.

Hagothsen wrote:

thekeck wrote:Fun Conference Fact:
We are no longer broadcasting the lyrics to the Congregational Hymn. Why, you ask?
All the world receives the same video feed. We then add over 90 live languages to that video. In a global church, it no longer makes sense to have everyone view the English lyrics on their screen.
So grab your Hymnal, or check out the LDS Music app and sing along in whichever language you prefer! Happy Sunday Morning! #ldsconf

Then... announce the hymn#, or use a lower third graphic.

Not all hymnals have the same hymn# for each hymn. You would probably have 90 #'s for all the hymnals.

It's true that, at least on LDS.org, the hymn subtitles from previous conferences seem to always be in English, but if that's the only reason, then why didn't they also remove other subtitles – for example, the subtitles that show the name and calling of the speaker?

Many times we are viewing conference in buildings or areas of the building where hymnbooks are not available (General Priesthood Session), and/or it is too dark to see the hymnbook clearly. Also at home, I have to quickly find a hymnbook or my computer or phone to find the lyrics. It is a large disruption to enjoying the spirit of the meeting. If you can send out the audio in 90 languages, surely you could include the hymn lyrics in a few of those languages.

thekeck wrote:Fun Conference Fact:
We are no longer broadcasting the lyrics to the Congregational Hymn. Why, you ask?
All the world receives the same video feed. We then add over 90 live languages to that video. In a global church, it no longer makes sense to have everyone view the English lyrics on their screen.
So grab your Hymnal, or check out the LDS Music app and sing along in whichever language you prefer! Happy Sunday Morning! #ldsconf

If that is true, then it doesn't make much sense to display the text of President Monson's talk in English. As has already been mentioned, it is problematic in some buildings to turn on the lights during the broadcast to consult the hymn book.

thekeck wrote:Fun Conference Fact:
We are no longer broadcasting the lyrics to the Congregational Hymn. Why, you ask?
All the world receives the same video feed. We then add over 90 live languages to that video. In a global church, it no longer makes sense to have everyone view the English lyrics on their screen.
So grab your Hymnal, or check out the LDS Music app and sing along in whichever language you prefer! Happy Sunday Morning! #ldsconf

The above makes sense. However, on the internet there is an option to choose the English language version from several other selections . If the church is changing the audio language, why can't they follow suit and change the captioning language to the hymns? Is it really too technologically difficult? Not everyone has hymnals/electronics in the home to go around.

cksedg wrote:If you can send out the audio in 90 languages, surely you could include the hymn lyrics in a few of those languages.

For 88 of those languages, I think it's little more than a voice-over by the translator. ASL is the only one I'm sure of that has it's own video feed.

thekeck wrote:Fun Conference Fact:
We are no longer broadcasting the lyrics to the Congregational Hymn. Why, you ask?
All the world receives the same video feed. We then add over 90 live languages to that video. In a global church, it no longer makes sense to have everyone view the English lyrics on their screen.
So grab your Hymnal, or check out the LDS Music app and sing along in whichever language you prefer! Happy Sunday Morning! #ldsconf

So, because some can't read English, it is better to deny all?

Is this really the official reason? I ask because this is your first post here, and your username doesn't exactly look official.

thekeck wrote:Fun Conference Fact:
We are no longer broadcasting the lyrics to the Congregational Hymn. Why, you ask?
All the world receives the same video feed. We then add over 90 live languages to that video. In a global church, it no longer makes sense to have everyone view the English lyrics on their screen.
So grab your Hymnal, or check out the LDS Music app and sing along in whichever language you prefer! Happy Sunday Morning! #ldsconf

Ok, I've seen this quote now on facebook and someone who works with music in general conference confirmed it, so I'm no longer skeptical.

I wrote up this long diatribe about why I think this is such a bad idea. Then I realized it was just Satan trying to get me to stir up contention. Clearly, I've already forgotten counsel from President Uchtdorf, Sister Jones, and a dozen other speakers from the past two days.

Oh well.

I was disappointed that nobody spoke in their native language besides English this conference, like they have recently.

sbradshaw wrote:I was disappointed that nobody spoke in their native language besides English this conference, like they have recently.

I'll bet the people doing the production breathed a sigh of relief when they discovered that. It sounds like it could be a technical nightmare with the audio re-routing for one talk.

Hagothsen wrote:I wrote up this long diatribe about why I think this is such a bad idea.

I miss the hymn lyrics, too. But I understand why they did it.

It does mean I will have to change my habits, i.e., have LDS Hymns handy and pray the hymn will load before the first verse is over. (Oops. Loading speed off topic. Sorry.)

sbradshaw wrote:I was disappointed that nobody spoke in their native language besides English this conference, like they have recently.

I'd like to hear speakers give thier talks and bare their testimonies in their native tongues, with subtitles instead of voice overs. I think that would be a much bigger step in embracing our worldwide nature, than simply jettisoning the English subtitles for the congregational hymns. Of course, we're hampered by the one stream for the whole world problem. Why couldn't we start with English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, then add additional language streams in time? "For it shall come to pass in that day, that every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language..."

I'd love to be a part of making that happen.

I, too, would love a return to having native speakers able to choose to speak in their native tongue-- whether subtitles or audio dubbing is used. My understanding is some people prefer the English-only way and that may have influenced the return to that custom. As such, I'd love to my voice in the opposite way be heard-- even though I sustain fully any choice the brethren make in this matter.

While I understand that the same feed is broadcast worldwide, the hymns are still all sung in english. Please bring back the subtitles. While I know lost of the lyrics for all verses to most familiar hymns, my youth and children do not, since we no longer have SS opening exercises to practice them.

painaz wrote:the hymns are still all sung in english.

The lyrics in question is for the congregational hymns. I'd expect the congregation to sing those the local language.

I also suspect we've reached the point where we have more non-English people watching than English.

russellhltn wrote:I'd expect the congregation to sing those the local language.

If the hymn has been translated into the local language.

One conference speaker quoted a Portuguese hymn that is not in the English hymnal. One of my favorite hymns is in the French hymnal and is not available in English.

What a wonderful world in which we live.

lajackson wrote:

russellhltn wrote:I'd expect the congregation to sing those the local language.

If the hymn has been translated into the local language.

I'd expect the music director to be watchful of major missteps in that area. At least avoid congregational songs that haven't been translated into a language with a large viewership. I'd imagine there's a list somewhere of "acceptable" songs. <grin>

There are 32 hymns that have been translated into 88 languages.

sbradshaw wrote:There are 32 hymns that have been translated into 88 languages.

Is "Go Forth With Faith" one of them? That was the congregational hymn sung in the Saturday afternoon session, and although it's certainly not as obscure as "Sons of Michael, He Approaches," it's probably not one that most members have memorized. In my recent memory it's the least well-known hymn selected for a congregational hymn in a session of general conference. "Go Forth With Faith" is available in the Hymns section of LDS.org in English, German, French, Spanish, and Portuguese -- all the languages supported in the interactive music player on LDS.org.

I'm curious -- how were you able to look up that factoid about how many hymns have been translated into 88 languages? Is that a source that is publicly available?

thekeck wrote:Fun Conference Fact:
We are no longer broadcasting the lyrics to the Congregational Hymn. Why, you ask?
All the world receives the same video feed. We then add over 90 live languages to that video. In a global church, it no longer makes sense to have everyone view the English lyrics on their screen.
So grab your Hymnal, or check out the LDS Music app and sing along in whichever language you prefer! Happy Sunday Morning! #ldsconf

If that's the case, then in a global church it also no longer makes sense to force all speakers to give their talks in English and so they should each be allowed to speak in their native language. Consistency is the key, guys. Are we a global church or not?

cummin wrote:If that's the case, then in a global church it also no longer makes sense to force all speakers to give their talks in English and so they should each be allowed to speak in their native language. Consistency is the key, guys. Are we a global church or not?

They tried that, but there may be some technical issues discouraging making that a routine thing.

Dropping lyrics is simple. The number of non-English viewers may be such that asking them to "sing" the English lyrics doesn't go over well.

aebrown wrote:

sbradshaw wrote:There are 32 hymns that have been translated into 88 languages.

Is "Go Forth With Faith" one of them? That was the congregational hymn sung in the Saturday afternoon session, and although it's certainly not as obscure as "Sons of Michael, He Approaches," it's probably not one that most members have memorized.

Go Forth with Faith has been translated into 42 languages. "Sons of Michael, He Approaches" appears to have been translated into Samoan.

aebrown wrote:I'm curious -- how were you able to look up that factoid about how many hymns have been translated into 88 languages? Is that a source that is publicly available?

The source is SingPraises.net (bottom of the page).

russellhltn wrote:I'd imagine there's a list somewhere of "acceptable" songs. <grin>

Hehe. My wife and I call them the LDS Top 40.

Regarding on-screen lyrics, that was the #1 thing requested by those who attended our last stake conference in the [dimly lit] overflow building. Might be nice providing our stake something the church stopped doing.

I saw a quick shot of the rostrum and they did have lyrics on their screens during the hymns.

Hagothsen wrote:

thekeck wrote:Fun Conference Fact:
We are no longer broadcasting the lyrics to the Congregational Hymn. Why, you ask?
All the world receives the same video feed. We then add over 90 live languages to that video. In a global church, it no longer makes sense to have everyone view the English lyrics on their screen.
So grab your Hymnal, or check out the LDS Music app and sing along in whichever language you prefer! Happy Sunday Morning! #ldsconf

Then... announce the hymn#, or use a lower third graphic.

Um, hymn numbers are not the same from language to language either.

StevePoulsen wrote:Um, hymn numbers are not the same from language to language either.

Hopefully it's something they work on when it comes time to do a new hymn book.

StevePoulsen wrote:

Hagothsen wrote:

thekeck wrote:Fun Conference Fact:
We are no longer broadcasting the lyrics to the Congregational Hymn. Why, you ask?
All the world receives the same video feed. We then add over 90 live languages to that video. In a global church, it no longer makes sense to have everyone view the English lyrics on their screen.
So grab your Hymnal, or check out the LDS Music app and sing along in whichever language you prefer! Happy Sunday Morning! #ldsconf

Then... announce the hymn#, or use a lower third graphic.

Um, hymn numbers are not the same from language to language either.

They could at least announce the English hymn number. The translators could have the hymn number for the respective language they are translating for. Yeah it's not verbatim of what's being said, but it is an applicable translation.

Most people I know who use the hymns app don't realize that you can sort via "ABC"; they continue to look numerically which poses a problem when they only announce the title.

We do need to give everyone a break. Growing pains are hard on everyone. All this means is that we need to have more hymn chase exercises in addition to scripture chases.

kellymab wrote:They could at least announce the English hymn number.

Are the hymnals by language or by country? I wouldn't expect to find "America the Beautiful" or "Star-Spangled Banner" in England or Canada.

russellhltn wrote:Are the hymnals by language or by country? I wouldn't expect to find "America the Beautiful" or "Star-Spangled Banner" in England or Canada.

Language. For a fully developed language, the hymnal will have about two thirds of the hymns in the English hymnal. Priesthood leaders are authorized to add an appropriate national hymn or anthem as an insert with proper approvals. So the two hymns you mention are available in England and the English-speaking part of Canada, although they probably never sing them. The French-speaking part of Canada uses the hymnal that includes my favorite hymn, which is not translated into English.

Because we have Spanish-speaking units in our stake, we have an English to Spanish hymn number conversion chart, and effort is made to select hymns that are also in the Spanish hymnal.

For some meetings, we also use the hymn chart that shows which hymns the organ can play from its memory banks. That also runs at about two thirds of the hymnal, but doesn't always correspond to the list of available Spanish hymns.

Music and its translation is a complicated business. In Spanish, for example, some of the hymn "translations" do not even have the same meaning because of the difficulty in staying within the limits of the composed music.

kellymab wrote:All this means is that we need to have more hymn chase exercises in addition to scripture chases.

I like that idea!

kellymab wrote:All this means is that we need to have more hymn chase exercises in addition to scripture chases.

Nah, what this means is that we need to revive some 90's TV technology. We just open up our hymn app and the app will pick up some audio cue tones and flip to the right hymn.

russellhltn wrote:

kellymab wrote:All this means is that we need to have more hymn chase exercises in addition to scripture chases.

Nah, what this means is that we need to revive some 90's TV technology. We just open up our hymn app and the app will pick up some audio cue tones and flip to the right hymn.

Or... incorporate the Shazam / SoundHound algorithm into the LDSMusic app.

I'm still skeptical of the purported explanation. The text was missing also from scripture quotes during talks. The lovely backgrounds were well prepared with non-busy areas where text could be overlaid and be clearly readable and visible. But there was no text. This happened at least via the YouTube live feed I was watching. That makes me think the hymn thing and the missing quotes thing is something more, a technical glitch.

Quote text was (is still?) missing also in Elder Oaks' talk via the LDS.ORG single-talk video stream that I watched on Monday.

Even if the hymn text part is as has been reasoned, I'll betcha the lyrics are back after feedback in October!

Astounding wrote:That makes me think the hymn thing and the missing quotes thing is something more, a technical glitch.

My guess, and this is just a personal opinion because I have no insider information, is that the person who used to do it retired or left and was not replaced. Now obviously, if they wanted to do it, they could get someone else to do it.

However, I actually believe the explanation is the same for both the hymn lyrics and the scripture quotes: English is no longer the primary language of the members around the world.

That said, until this conference not every talk displayed scriptures. Most did not. I think it may have been a preference of the speaker, some sort of special request they could make if they wished to include that, or more likely, some of the pictures we have seen in the past. It will be interesting to see what happens next conference.

But I don't think the lyrics are coming back. Again, my own personal opinion. I would be delighted to be wrong.

lajackson wrote:But I don't think the lyrics are coming back.

Not without breaking up the video feed into multiple feeds.

There's always Closed Captioning. The newer Epson has CC decoding built-in.

russellhltn wrote:There's always Closed Captioning. The newer Epson has CC decoding built-in.

I spoke with several people who turned on closed captioning when the hymn lyrics did not appear. But the CC did not appear fast enough to sing with the congregation.

This is so sad to me. Our congregation in India was just at a loss. There were investigators and members who would have attempted to sing if the words had been there. So what if there are English lyrics across the bottom of the screen. What does it hurt? Please bring back the words! it adds so much the Spirit of General Conference.

Sadly,

The lack of hymn lyrics continues. Does anyone know who we can contact to find out which congregational hymns will be sung in each session so we can overlay our own lyrics? or at least call out the hymn# so as not to lose half of the first verse thumbing through the hymn book in the dark?

Hagothsen wrote:The lack of hymn lyrics continues. Does anyone know who we can contact to find out which congregational hymns will be sung in each session so we can overlay our own lyrics?

I don't know. Personally I doubt that such information would be released ahead of time (not that it's a huge secret, but just that that requires setting up a communication channel for that information). But if you could find that out, it would help a lot of people. I would probably just start with the main Church switchboard (now there's an antique word that some of us still use!) and start asking questions -- the switchboard operators usually do a pretty good job of routing calls to people who can help.

Hagothsen wrote:... or at least call out the hymn# so as not to lose half of the first verse thumbing through the hymn book in the dark?

You already made that suggestion six months ago and got a response that hymn numbers have the same language problem that lyrics do -- they're not the same in all languages.

Sorry, I meant calling out the hymn numbers locally at the pulpit for those in attendance.

We still cannot see the words to the songs. When I went to conference yesterday morning at the conference center, the words were posted. At home on TV, the words continue to not be posted! According to the men in my life, this made the songs at priesthood weak.

This topic has been beaten to death already. Essentially it has been decided that English should be afforded no more prominence than other languages, therefore, no more hymn lyrics. Also, because non-English hymnals have different pages, they can’t simply call out the page #. I personally dislike the idea (to put it mildly), but I trust the decision was made by someone with proper authority. So I’m working on my own solution.

I’m slowly transposing lyrics into an Excel file, so that I can overlay hymn lyrics using vMix for those in the chapel. I should have it in place for October Conference.

Turn on closed captioning for the hymn. Turn it off again afterward. Although there is a delay in the appearance of the words.

Or just have someone locally call out the hymn number when they first find it.

I find it most interesting to me that this thread has been ongoing for a year yet we only first experienced this difficulty yesterday.

Lyrics have been missing, at least for us, for much longer than yesterday.

wmgwin wrote:I find it most interesting to me that this thread has been ongoing for a year yet we only first experienced this difficulty yesterday.

They stopped broadcasting English language hymn lyrics with the video feed at April conference two years ago. They still show them inside the Conference Center. I wonder if they have someone who adds them there on the preview loop, but they just don't send them out with the worldwide video feed. I suppose it would be interesting to broadcast 20,000 members stumbling through an intermediate hymn as we now do at the stake center.

It would be nice to have the names of the hymns in advance, even if they changed during the session (I believe sometimes they do.) When we webcast our stake conferences, we send a shot of the hymn number board before the session starts so that they may also be posted in the receiving location chapels.

As the paraphrased scripture says (lightning bolt alert), one church, one video feed. I am glad they have not taken that track with the audio portion of General Conference broadcasts.

Things may get interesting when we switch to the new hymn book.

lajackson wrote:As the paraphrased scripture says (lightning bolt alert), one church, one video feed. I am glad they have not taken that track with the audio portion of General Conference broadcasts.

Speaking of that, is it my imagination, or have they gone back to single-language and not try to switch languages during the conference?

Hagothsen wrote:Things may get interesting when we switch to the new hymn book.

I think one of the goals of the new hymn book is to unify the numbers.

I'm sure a "block" will be set aside for "local" hymns, such as America the Beautiful (hymn #338), but the "international" ones will all be the same number.

russellhltn wrote:. . . is it my imagination, or have they gone back to single-language and not try to switch languages during the conference?

It was an interesting experiment, but conference is back to English.

Oddly, enough the words were on the screen for the last choir number. I'm not sure about the rest of the conference, since I tend to listen rather than watch.

russellhltn wrote:Oddly, enough the words were on the screen for the last choir number. I'm not sure about the rest of the conference, since I tend to listen rather than watch.

We watched the entire session via lds.org - this was the only hymn that had the words on-screen for the session.