Proofread Musical Notation With Pīnyīn Lyrics Available for the Closing Song of Mandarin 2018 Regional Conventions

(NOTE: Re the valid general concerns expressed here about posting official publications to the Internet, there are good reasons for concluding that those concerns do not apply to this particular material. See this disclaimer for more information.)

Some of you may have noticed that in the program for the 2018 regional conventions, no number is provided for the closing song on the last day. *** Minor spoiler ***: It turns out that the closing song is a new one, and it is considered one of the convention releases. Currently, however, no official Pīnyīn material seems to be available for it.

To help those who would benefit from Pīnyīn lyrics for it, proofread musical notation 🎼 with Pīnyīn lyrics and proofread Pīnyīn web material (better than auto-generated Pīnyīn like that displayed by the Equipd app, and more mobile-friendly than the older 3-line PDFs) for the closing song of Mandarin 2018 regional conventions has been posted to this resource:

• “Sing Out Joyfully” Bk.
  (Pīnyīn+Music, Pīnyīn Plus, Web)
  (proofread, mobile-friendly,
  links for getting around,
  song links sorted by number;
  Pīnyīn+Music: prezoomed to use full screen width,
  easy-to-read font,
  guitar chords included;
  Pīnyīn Plus: flashcards integrated with the text,
  carefully done human-translated
  context-appropriate English translations
  with literal & effective meanings,
  Simplified & Traditional characters,
  📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced, and
  📘 Reveal None controls
  for all the “flashcards” in a
  song, paragraph, etc.,
  Night Theme that can be turned on or off
  using the ☀️/🌙 button at the top right,
  adjustable text size)
  (Info re offline viewing and printing)
  
• Short Links:
  Links ▶ Publications ▶ Books ▶
  “Sing Out Joyfully” Book Links (tiandi.info/sjj)

Screenshots of the above resource being used offline on an iPhone 📱, using the app GoodReader. (Other similar apps can also be used, e.g. Documents.) (Screenshots of the closing song would be spoilers, so ones of a different song are shown above. 😊)

Scheduling notes:

• Mandarin Our Christian Life and Ministry and “Watchtower” Study meetings: Production of at least partially proofread Pīnyīn material (better at least than auto-generated Pīnyīn like that displayed by the Equipd app, and more mobile-friendly than the older 3-line PDFs) with a few basic Pīnyīn Plus “flashcards” is expected to keep up with all the songs scheduled.
• Mandarin 2017–2018 circuit assemblies: Proofread Pīnyīn lyrics and musical notation are available for all the songs scheduled.
• Mandarin 2018 Memorial meetings: Proofread Pīnyīn lyrics and musical notation are available for the songs scheduled.
• Mandarin 2018 regional conventions: Proofread Pīnyīn lyrics and musical notation are available for all the songs scheduled.

The Pīnyīn songbook material in the above unofficial resource has been designed to be mobile-first, so it works well on mobile devices of various shapes and sizes, including tablets and smartphones 📱. Some of the ways in which it does so are:

• Song material with musical notation 🎼 automatically loads “prezoomed” to take full advantage of the width of your device’s display, so as to render its Pīnyīn lyrics in as large a size as possible.
• In the song material with musical notation 🎼, the typeface (font) chosen for the Pīnyīn lyrics is one that is especially legible at smaller text sizes.
• The lyrics-only material uses Pīnyīn Plus technology, so the text automatically reflows according to the width of the display. Also, the text can be set to different sizes by the user, and a Night Theme is available. As time allows, more Pīnyīn Plus “flashcards” will be added, with their English translations, Chinese characters, etc.

The introduction for the above resource explains why it’s good to use Pīnyīn as a writing system on its own.

In the material with musical notation in the above resource, the Pīnyīn lyrics do not have Pīnyīn Plus “flashcard” functionality because they need to stay aligned with the musical notation. As time allows, Pīnyīn lyrics will be presented on their own as well, using Pīnyīn Plus technology. This will allow for the adding of Pīnyīn Plus “flashcards” with English translations, Chinese characters, etc. in the future.

While the original intention re the above resource was to prioritize production of material with musical notation and leave off production of Pīnyīn Plus lyrics-only material indefinitely, further analysis has led to the realization that since proofread Pīnyīn lyrics must be produced in some form for the musical notation material anyway, and since Pīnyīn Plus technology is a time-effective way to record proofread Pīnyīn text, it would be efficient to first produce proofread Pīnyīn lyrics in Pīnyīn Plus format for a particular song, and then to use those proofread Pīnyīn lyrics to speed up the production of musical notation material for that song. So, that will be the production workflow going forward for the above resource.

Previously, musical notation in the above resource was taken from screenshots of an official PDF file. Note (and make it a musical note ♪, at that 😄), though, that the musical notation for song 77 marked the debut in the above resource of musical notation 🎼 produced “from scratch” to be mobile-first in design. This should provide for better and more consistent user experiences going forward, especially on smaller mobile devices like smartphones 📱.