The project was born a few years ago, initially only to involve more young people from the Salesian works in Lahore and Quetta to join in with the hymns during the celebrations.
Later, the Salesians thought about making this available to everyone, in the hope that it too would be for the greater glory of God.
The book's preface reads: “Work has been done in free time and is far from finished. More complete and correct editions are likely to follow. Western musical writing has imposed the use of roman Urdu (writing from left to right) instead of Urdu with Arabic characters. In writing the melody we tried to be as faithful as possible to the hymns as they are normally sung in the parishes, but we are aware that some nuances, some melismas typical of South Asian music are impossible to reproduce in Western musical notation. In harmonisation we have followed the criterion of simplicity, but without falling into the trivial. We preferred a tonal harmonisation even where the structure of the chant is typically modal. The choice is motivated by the need to give greater strength to the accompaniment, since in many hymns it is also possible to use the guitar or other non-traditional instruments."
The booklet is free to download at https://tinyurl.com/2am5c6b7
