One question that is frequently asked of both the sales and customer service departments at GIA is, “What does this edition or missal look like?” or phrased a bit differently, “Can you send me a sample of the layout of this edition or missal?”
In our current Hymnals and Missals Catalog, we’ve dedicated five pages to help our customers understand what each edition format looks like. This article seeks to expand this understanding and offer more descriptive details for each format and layout.
We’ve also included a section on other supplemental materials that GIA has developed to help you use your hymnal or missal to its fullest potential.
Let’s start with our hardbound hymnals…
Pew Editions
Our pew editions are 6” x 9”. They come with or without readings. The front portion of each hymnal is the same, however, the pew edition with readings contains the Liturgy of the Word for every Sunday and Feast Day in the Liturgical year (A, B, C, Solemnities, and Feasts). This makes the spine significantly wider.
Choir Edition
Our choir editions are 6” x 9”. Our choir editions have choral parts for the hymns, songs, psalms, and service music contained within when available. All GIA hymnals contain a variety of unison pieces in addition to an assortment of other harmonic textures.
Keyboard Accompaniments
Landscape
Landscape keyboard editions measure 9” x 12”, are spiral-bound, and range from 2 to 4 volumes. Each landscape page spread conveniently holds four pages of music, reducing page turns. This is true of all landscape accompaniments except for One in Faith.
One in Faith measures 11” x 17”. The Landscape Edition is 2 volumes. It comes with 2 seven-ring binders and two shrink-wrapped music sets. A service binder is sold separately. This convenient binder holds your music selections for individual celebrations.
Spiral Edition
Spiral-bound keyboard editions are portrait and measure 8.5” x 11”, and range from 2 to 6 volumes. Each portrait page is engraved with a larger font and each spread contains two pages of music. This is true of all portrait accompaniments except for Singing Our Faith and One in Faith.
While One in Faith measures 8.5” x 11” it is NOT spiral-bound. The portrait edition is 3 volumes. It comes with 3 seven-ring binders and three shrink-wrapped music sets. A service binder is sold separately. This convenient binder holds your music selections for individual celebrations.
Singing our Faith is 9” x 12” and is spiral-bound and comes with 2 volumes.
Looseleaf
Looseleaf keyboard editions are 8.5” x 11” and range from 3 to 6 volumes. The music is in 2-page spreads that are organized to reduce page turns. They come with 2, three-ring binders. Several shrink-wrapped volumes can fit comfortably in 1, three-ring binder. A service binder is included with each looseleaf keyboard accompaniment. This convenient binder holds your music selections for individual celebrations.
Guitar Accompaniments
Spiral Edition
Spiral-bound guitar editions are portrait and measure 8” x 11”, and range from 2 to 4 volumes. Each portrait page is engraved with a larger font and each spread contains two pages of music.
Looseleaf
Looseleaf guitar editions are 8.5” x 11” and range from 3 to 6 volumes. The music is in 2-page spreads that are organized to reduce page turns. They come with 2, three-ring binders. Several shrink-wrapped volumes can fit comfortably in 1, three-ring binder. A service binder is included with each looseleaf keyboard accompaniment. This convenient binder holds your music selections for individual celebrations.
Instrument Editions
- C Instrument
- B-flat Instrument
- E-flat Instrument (when available)
Instrument editions are portrait and measure 8.5” x 11”, are spiral-bound, and are generally 2 volumes. Each portrait page is engraved with a larger font and each spread contains two pages of music.
Singing Our Faith has only a C-Instrument Edition.
Specialty Editions
Lead Sheet (currently only available with Gather—Fourth Edition)
This lead sheet edition is spiral-bound and comes in 3 volumes. It contains melody and chords only. The songs are, for the most part, contained on two facing pages, making this edition ideal for guitarists, bass players, percussionists, and pianists who want to cut down on page turns.
Descant (currently only available with Gather—Fourth Edition)
New to our hymnal supplement editions is this descant edition. It includes both new and established descants for 270 of the hymns found in Gather—Fourth Edition. While the numbering of these descants corresponds to the titles found in the hymnal, they can be used with other hymnals and resources, provided the harmonizations are compatible. Comes in both a spiral- and perfect-bound softcover edition.
Complete Indexes
These convenient books containing complete signature indexes found in your GIA hymnal are perfect as a desk reference for planning. Printed indexes are currently only available for One in Faith and Gather—Fourth Edition. All other hymnal indexes can be found as downloads at giamusic.com.
Next let’s look at some softbound hymnals that are available as long-term resources…
Voices
The Voices pew and vocal harmony editions are both 6” x 9”, softcover, and perfect-bound. The pew edition contains lyrics and musical notation of the melody only. The vocal harmony edition contains the harmonies for the hymns and songs when available.
The keyboard, guitar, C, B-flat, and Saxophone and Brass editions are all the same formatting as the spiral editions described in the hardbound hymnal section above.
Cross Generation
The pew edition is 6” x 9”, softcover, and perfect-bound. The pew edition contains lyrics and musical notation of the melody only. One unique feature of this hymnal is the various short articles, which offer succinct insights and explanations about the tenets of the Catholic faith. These articles serve as a tool in the ongoing religious formation of the faithful.
The keyboard edition is the same as the spiral-bound keyboard landscape editions for our hardbound hymnals.
Guitar/Choir Edition is the same size as the pew edition, but it is spiral-bound.
Sound the Bamboo
The pew edition contains melody, lyrics, along with vocal harmonies, and keyboard accompaniments when available.
Sound the Bamboo has a Hymnal Companion available. The resource examines the hymns in their historical cultural and spiritual contexts of 22 countries. This in addition to the usual background stories of texts and tunes of specific hymns in the related hymnal and the biographies of their contributors.
If you’ve made it to this point, congratulations! You’ve now become an expert in GIA’s hardbound hymnal edition formats. In the next instalment we will cover the available editions supporting our renewable resources.
Coming next time…
Hymnal, Missal, and Accompaniment Formats & Supplemental Resources Part 2!