Song Not on PraiseCharts? Chart It From the Recording

PraiseCharts is a catalogue, and a catalogue cannot sell a chart it doesn't carry. So when the song your worship leader picked for Sunday isn't there, searching harder won't fix it. You need a different route: ask for it, pay someone to chart it, or chart it yourself from the recording. This guide sets out each one, what it costs, how long it takes, and the licensing question that sits underneath all three.

This page is the starting point for everything we publish for worship musicians. The rest of the series, from Nashville number charts to adding your own charts to a planning tool, is collected on the worship hub.

The three routes compared

Prices from PraiseCharts' own arranging page, checked 16 September 2026.

First, make sure the song is really missing

It sounds obvious, but a few minutes here can save a custom order.

• Search the other spellings. Worship songs get retitled, shortened and renamed after a line of the chorus. Search a distinctive lyric as well as the title.
• Check the other big catalogue. CCLI's SongSelect is a separate catalogue, so a song missing from one can still be in the other. If it's missing from both, our companion guide on a song not on SongSelect covers that side.
• Check the writer's or publisher's own site. Independent and church-based writers sometimes sell or give away their own charts directly.
• Check whether it's covered by your licence at all. CCLI's licence summary tells churches to validate a song before reproducing it, through a SongSelect search or its Copyright License – Covered Catalogs list. A song that doesn't show up there may not be covered by the licence, which changes what you're allowed to do next.

If the song is new, the catalogue may simply not have caught up yet, and waiting a few weeks is an option when Sunday isn't the deadline.

Route 1: ask PraiseCharts to add it

The Services page lists "Song Request - want to request a song we don't have?" with a form. It costs nothing to fill in.

What it doesn't come with is a date. PraiseCharts has written about how it chooses new songs: its team surveys musicians on candidate songs and releases lead sheets first to gauge demand before investing in orchestrations. A request adds to the demand signal. It doesn't put a chart on your stand by Sunday.

Use it when the song is one you'll play for years and you can live with a chart from somewhere else in the meantime.

Route 2: order a custom chart

PraiseCharts runs an arranging and transcribing service for exactly this situation, covering both songs you wrote and songs you didn't. The process on its page is four steps: email [email protected], PraiseCharts ensures copyright clearance, it assigns an arranger (you can request one), and it posts the chart to the site "within two weeks".

The price list, as displayed in September 2026:

Three conditions on that page change the real cost, so read them before you email.

You pay twice. The arranging fee buys priority in the arranging queue. You still have to "purchase and download the newly available chart on the site", because "copyright use and royalties due are tied to the site purchase".

Long or complex songs cost more. Songs "over 6 minutes in length, or with complicated instrumentation may have additional costs".

You don't own the result unless you own the song. If you wrote it, PraiseCharts says "you own the master files once they are delivered to you". If you didn't, "You would not 'own' the arrangement", and PraiseCharts retains "the right to sell that arrangement in our catalog". PraiseCharts also only arranges songs it can clear.

For a church that needs a full band arrangement of a popular song, done properly and cleared, this is the most complete route. For a single chord chart, $45 plus the chart purchase and a two-week wait is the price of not doing it yourself. Our breakdown of what music transcription costs sets that against hiring an independent transcriber.

The licensing question under every route

This is the part worship teams most often skip, and it applies whether you pay someone or write the chart on a Tuesday night. We're describing what CCLI publishes, not giving legal advice; your church's own licence terms, and CCLI, are the authority.

CCLI's Church Copyright License summary puts arrangements in a narrow box. The wording differs by region, so we quote the region. On CCLI's US summary, which also carries the wording for Canada, "only where a published version is unavailable" may a church "Make customized vocal and/or instrumental arrangements of Songs", and the list of things not permitted includes "Altering or changing the lyrics, melody or fundamental character of any Song". CCLI's UK summary uses the same published-version condition (spelled "customised"). A separate version on the US page, marked for Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Europe, instead lists making customized arrangements among things not permitted "without explicit permission from the rights holder". Read the summary for your own country.

Read together, for a team whose song isn't on PraiseCharts:

• The song has to be covered by the licence. Check it through SongSelect or the covered catalogues list first.
• "No published version" is the condition. A song missing from PraiseCharts is not automatically missing everywhere. If a published chart exists in another catalogue, buying that is the straightforward path.
• Arranging is not rewriting. CCLI's own answer on changing lyrics is "The simple answer is no—not without permission from the song owner", while reordering sections, omitting verses and instrumental arrangements are fine.
• Photocopying typeset music isn't covered. The summary excludes photocopying choral music, cantatas, musicals, vocal solos and instrumental works.
• Copies stay in the church. Distributing copies outside church services isn't permitted.

We go through these clauses one by one, including what "published version" might mean in practice, in does a CCLI licence cover arrangements. If the song was written by someone on your team, none of this is a barrier: it's their song, and charting an original worship song is a different and simpler job.

Route 3: chart it yourself from the recording

If the licence allows it and you'd rather not wait two weeks, you can make the chart. Start by deciding what kind of chart your team actually reads, because that decides the work.

For the full comparison, including which to give a keys player who reads but also improvises, see chord chart vs lead sheet for worship keys. If your band works in numbers, Nashville number charts from a recording covers that format.

Get a recording you can work from

A commercial worship recording is a dense mix: pads, two guitars, bass, drums, several vocals, and reverb on all of it. You can chart chords from that by ear, because chords are about the bass note and the overall harmony. What you can't easily do is pull an exact piano part out of it, by ear or by software.

So there are really two sources:

• The original recording, for form, key, chords and the melody. Use it for a chord chart or lead sheet.
• A solo take by your own keys player, playing the song as they'll play it on Sunday. Use it when you want the keys part written out. Record it on a phone close to the piano or keyboard, in a quiet room, with no click or backing track bleeding in.

The second source is the one that transcribes well, and it has a side benefit: the chart matches your team's version, in your key, rather than the album's.

Build a chord chart by ear

This is free and, for most worship songs, quicker than it sounds, because the harmony tends to repeat across sections.

1. Map the form first. Listen once through and write the sections in order: intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, tag. Note repeats.
2. Find the key. Hum the note the chorus resolves to. Check it against the bass note at the end of the chorus.
3. Follow the bass. For each section, write down the bass note on each chord change. Most worship songs move through a handful of chords built on the key's scale.
4. Name the chord above each bass note. Major or minor first; add sevenths or suspensions only where you clearly hear them. Where the bass isn't the root, write a slash chord such as G/B.
5. Place the chords on the lyric syllable where they change, not just at the start of the line.
6. Transpose to your worship leader's key before you print.
7. Play it through with the recording and fix what clashes.

You can do this in a word processor, but notation software pays off if you ever want a lead sheet from the same work. In MuseScore Studio, chord symbols are entered by pressing Ctrl+K (Mac: Cmd+K); Space moves to the next note, rest or beat and ; moves to the next beat. Chord symbols transpose with Tools → Transpose, and there is a Nashville number option under Add → Text for teams that read numbers. The handbook notes that transposing applies to chord symbols, not to Nashville numbers.

Write out the keys part from a solo take

When the keys player needs specific voicings or a signature riff on paper, write the part out from the solo take. You can do it by ear in notation software, bar by bar, or you can transcribe the take and correct it. The steps for the second route:

1. Record the keys player alone, playing the song in the key you'll use, at the tempo you'll use.
2. Transcribe the recording to MusicXML. This is where our tool fits: Piano to Sheet Music turns a piano recording into an engraved PDF on a grand staff, a MIDI file and a MusicXML file. It writes the notes. It does not write chord symbols or lyrics, and it is built for solo piano, so a full band mix is the wrong input.
3. Open the MusicXML in MuseScore Studio, Sibelius or Dorico.
4. Proofread against the recording. Fix wrong pitches first, then rhythm, then hand splits.
5. Add section labels and repeats so the part follows the song's form rather than the take.
6. Add chord symbols above the right-hand staff with Ctrl+K, naming each chord from the left hand and the notes stacked above it.
7. Export a PDF for the stand, and keep the MusicXML so you can transpose or edit later.

If your team has a keys player who plays songs by ear and you want those parts on paper, you can use Piano to Sheet Music and try it on one solo take. The first 30 seconds of every recording are transcribed free.

Turn it into a lead sheet if the singers need one

If the melody is new to the congregation or the vocal team, a chord chart isn't enough. A lead sheet writes the tune on one staff with the lyrics under it. Our guide to making a lead sheet from a recording covers the three ways to do that, including reducing a piano transcription to melody plus chords.

What each route really costs

A worked comparison for a team that needs one chord chart and one keys part, using the prices above. The arithmetic is ours; the figures are from PraiseCharts' page and our pricing.

The PraiseCharts route is the one where someone else is accountable for accuracy and clearance. The do-it-yourself routes cost less money and more of your evening, and the licensing check is yours to do.

Where the chart goes next

Your planning tool. If your team shares charts through scheduling software, attach the chart to the song there. Our walkthrough of adding your own charts to Planning Center Services covers attaching the PDF to the song so it shows up for every service it's used in.

The choir. If the song is also going to a choir, the accompaniment is a separate job. Choir accompaniment from a rehearsal recording covers recording in a church hall, where echo makes transcription harder.

Next year. Keep the source files, not only the PDFs. A MuseScore file or MusicXML transposes in seconds when a new worship leader wants the song a tone lower.

Frequently asked questions

What can I do if a song isn't on PraiseCharts?

You have three routes. Ask PraiseCharts to add it through the song request form on its Services page, pay for a custom arrangement, which it says it posts within two weeks after copyright clearance, or write your own chart from the recording. Which one fits depends on your deadline, your budget and whether your church's licence covers a custom arrangement.

How much does a PraiseCharts custom arrangement cost?

PraiseCharts' arranging page listed a chord chart at $35 from an existing chart or $45 without one, a melody-only lead sheet at $135 to $180, and a full piano/vocal pack at $250 to $330, as of September 2026. The fee is a priority fee: you still buy the finished chart on the site, because royalties are tied to that purchase.

Does a CCLI licence let us make our own chord chart?

Only in a narrow case. CCLI's US summary says custom vocal and instrumental arrangements are allowed only where a published version is unavailable, and never permits changing the lyrics, melody or fundamental character of a song. Otherwise CCLI's help says to ask the song's copyright owner. Other regions word it differently, so read your own country's summary, and check the song is covered first.

Can software make a worship chord chart from a recording?

Not reliably from a full band mix. A chord chart is lyrics and chord names, and most piano transcription tools, ours included, write out notes rather than chord symbols or lyrics. The practical route is to record your keys player playing the song alone, transcribe that piano part, then name the chords and add them in notation software.

Who owns a custom arrangement PraiseCharts makes for us?

It depends on who owns the song. PraiseCharts says that if you wrote the song, you own the master files once they are delivered. For a song you don't own, you would not own the arrangement, and PraiseCharts keeps the right to sell it in its catalogue under the copyright clearances it obtained.

Should my team use a chord chart, a lead sheet or a piano score?

Match the chart to the reader. Guitarists and ear players usually want chords over lyrics. Singers learning a new melody need a lead sheet with the tune written out. A keys player who reads well and has to reproduce a specific piano part needs that part on a grand staff. Many teams keep a chord chart for everyone and one written part for keys.

Sources

• PraiseCharts: Services (song request, arranging, key changes)
• PraiseCharts: Arranging and transcribing services and prices
• PraiseCharts help: will you create an arrangement if you don't have it on the site?
• PraiseCharts: how we pick new songs
• CCLI: Church Copyright License (US)
• CCLI: Church Copyright License Summary (US)
• CCLI: the 5 questions we hear the most
• MuseScore Studio Handbook: chord symbols

Prices checked 16 September 2026. CCLI's US and UK summary pages re-read 19 September 2026.