Top Catholic Songs

Erwin, I am glad you transposing down songs that were written in too high a key. I am also on a crusade to make congrgational hymns and psalms easier to sing for "average" voices – which I consider to be in the women's alto and men's baritone ranges. Instead of transposing, I employ one of these methods:

1) Tune my guitar down by a half step (one semitone). In other words, Eb Tuning. If I am being accompanied by an electronic keyboard, I will ask the keyboard player to use the transpose function to lower the pitch by a half step.

2) Some liturgical guitar books (notably those from GIA Publishing) have optional chords in parentheses with an indication to place your capo at fret 1, 2 or 3. So, to play a given song one semitone down, I can be on standard E guitar tuning but place my capo at one or two positions below the fret indicated for the capoed chords. 

What this does is help to avoid singing notes above high C. This is of great help to me as a singer with a bass-baritone tessitura.