Yeh, this is a fun issue for all worship leaders. Do you go with the original key a song was recorded/written in, or do you adjust it as you see fit? There’s actually a number of really awesome musicians who believe that each key has what they call a “color”, and they believe a songs ‘color’ must match the ‘color’ of the key for it to be played/performed correctly. Needless to say, I am not necessarily one of those. I do note, though, that some songs just “feel” better in specific keys.

In college I had a professor remark that the average vocal range of men and women has dropped about a third or fourth in the last 40-50 years. This, of course, was by a vocal instructor emphasizing the effects carbonated drinks, polution and various other elements can have on ones voice. But I was struck by the implications of that fact to worship (leading). Many older hymns were originally written in very high keys – some of which would be ridiculous to request of the average congregant. You don’t want to sing songs too high for your people.

Unfortunately, there is no perfect range you can land a song’s notes into (by adjusting its key) so that everyone can sing it. Some just go a tad to high, here or there, or even a touch too low in one point or another. This is one reason I think it is imperative for every worship leader to surround himself with strong vocalists, covering most of the vocal range, if at all possible. That way, as a leader, you can attempt to have each vocalist lead at least one song each service – not to be nice to them, but so that their natural variety of range will ensure that there are at least a couple of songs in each service which each congregant can handle the range. And sometimes you might have to adjust the key of a particular song to have it fit into a particular singers range – that’s great!

That said, it is my personal opinion that you should always start with the original key a song was written/recorded in, and then adjust from that point. There are many considerations, all of which impact whether or not the key should be changed and, if so, to what. Here are a few I’ve noted:

Range of lead vocalist: This is imperative – the person vocally leading the congregation in the song must be able to sing it (or if it’s two or more people – they must all be able to hit the notes they need to!). This is a must – you HAVE to change the key if a singer can’t do the notes, or you need a different singer to lead it.

Range of congregation: Listen to your people. If you are consistently getting feedback that a particular song is too high (or low) from a variety of people, you might consider that the key should be lowered for their sake as well – if the key of a song is hindering people’s worship, then that key should probably be adjusted.

Key of surrounding songs: This is a maybe. Sometimes you want to flow straigh from one song into the next, and “friendly” keys make that easier. Moving a key up or down a half a step or so into a more “neighborly” key can sometimes really contribute to the flow of the service.

Guitar Friendly: Unless you’ve got an incredibly able guitar player, you want to avoid keys like Ab and F#, they are just irritating to guitar players. Of course there is the ever handy capo which can solve most of those key problems. And keyboard players, though usually a bit more friendly with the lesser used keys, always prefer to the key the sharps and flats to a minimum in a key. This is definitely not a must, but something to keep in mind.

As a final note, never feel bound to a recorded key. Chris Tomlin’s songs have progressively gotten higher and higher in key over the past five years. David Crowder really can barely hit some of the high notes in some of his songs, but they’re singing so loud and playing so loud you can almost scream ‘em out and they sound great. It’s best if you figure out what works best for you, your team, and your congregation, primarily so that people pay as little attention as possible to the key of a song and as much as possible to the one to whom they are singing.