I've recently been spending some time with our worship planning team as we've discussed Christmas services and the upcoming calendar year. One of the tools that I've found indespinsible when it comes to discussing music for worship services is Spotify. I've had Spotify for several months, but it wasn't until recently that I've really found the full potential of what's possible.
Listen To Songs Without Buying Them
It's no big deal to buy a song for 99 cents, but when you are trying to discover new songs it's helpful to be able to listen to songs quickly without ever having to purchase them. 99 cents is not a lot of money, but multiply that over hundreds of songs and it adds up quickly. Spotify lets you search their huge library and listen to the song; plus if you have their premium account you can listen to all these songs on the go.
Get Suggestions From Others
One way that I've found Spotify helpful during planning is by utilizing the subscribe feature. What better way for people who cannot be in a meeting to have a voice into your planning then sharing a playlist? Song discovery is crucial to planning and also can also be very difficult. Suggestions from others is a huge assistant in the song discovery process.
Use Apps for Finding Lyrics
Spotify recently added the ability to install apps; I'm curious what the potential is for something like this is. Initially the best feature that I've found because of the apps is their integration with TuneWiki to allow for reading the lyrics of your current song. They don't have every song in their database yet, but I'm sure it will grow and continue to be useful.