Tips

Styling a song

Showing text on a screen should be easy to read and follow, and should be inviting to look at.

When showing text, there are many factors to count for, like how big the screen is, and who your audience are.

# The basics

Your text should should be clear, meaning you should center the text and remove unwanted punctuations like dots and exclamation marks. You should also try to keep a maximum of 5 lines. Meaning if your verse is longer, you should divide it on multiple slides. Also make sure line breaks are matching the melody of the song.

# Backgrounds are key

Use backgrounds matching the theme of the song, or just abstract shapes, preferable with suttle movements. But don't let the background distract from the song.

# Who are your audience?

If you have an old audience, you should keep a high contrast between the text and the background. A good tip is to add a black background box behind just the text, and an easy to read text font. Also you should make the text as big as possible, without having to change slides too often.

# Font

The font you use could be day/night difference, the letters should not be clumped together, and you should use bold text to make it easier to read. I recommend using CMG Sans, or Tahoma.

# Simple

I have noticed people having "(x4)" at the end of some slides. But it's not recommended, because both you and the audience have to "count", which could be distracting. This leaves a possibility for you to miscount, or maybe they repeat the bridge a few more times than planned, leaving the audience confused. It's much better to just repeat the same slide in your layout, which is easy to do in FreeShow. Meaning you always know where you are in the lyrics.

# Be early

This is probably one of the main things people do wrong. They change the slide to the next verse at the same time as the band. This is bad because the audience won't know what to sing before it's too late. It's much better to switch slides before singing the last words, because often people read the whole last line unconsciously, and can start preparing for the next line while singing the last word.

# Breaks

If you know there is going to be a long instrumental break or outro in a song, you should remove the text, and just keep the background. You can also just insert a blank slide. Of course you will have to remember how long the break lasts, so you can show the text before the band starts singing. You can use slide notes to help. If you can do that, the audience gets a much nicer experience, because they know when they are supposed to sing or not.