Cyberhymnal. http://www.hymntime.com/tch/. This is the real Cyberhymnal site. (Their old domain name was claim-jumped by another organization which essentially stole their work and filled the site with advertising.) Cyberhymnal started out in 1996, and still has that '90s web site feel, though many new features have been added. It's a great resource and still one of the first places I start. It includes lyrics, sound files, sheet music, and bios. (N.B. There is a check-box on the home page where you can turn off the auto-play on the cheesy organ music MIDI files.)
Christian Classics Ethereal Hymnary. http://www.hymnary.org/. This is a companion site to the excellent Christian Classics Ethereal Library (http://www.ccel.org/). The Hymnary is a massive project with great promise. It is indexed by text, tune, personal names, and hymnals, and includes (or provides links to) texts, audio, sheet music, and bios. A caveat: because of the huge scope of the site, it is not as complete as it might first appear; though it indexes over a million hymns by title, it does not have full text for any more than does Cyberhymnal.
An exciting feature of this site is the indexing of more than 5,000 hymnals. With this information you can compare the contents of different hymnals, view the hymnals in which a hymn or tune has appeared, and gauge the relative popularity of different hymns based on their frequency of occurrence. The ability to search hymnals by denomination is very interesting as well, though I am rather miffed at being categorized under the heading, "Disciples of Christ. Christian Churches. Campbellites." Campbellites? Are you serious?
Hymn Studies at Homeschoolblogger.com. http://homeschoolblogger.com/hymnstudies/. I wish I knew the name of this writer, because he or she has done an outstanding job. I make a point not to look at this blog when I am writing my own posts, because we often think along very similar lines; I've even thought about skipping the hymns already written up at Homeschoolblogger. We share a devotional-commentary approach to writing on the hymns, spending less time on the "hymn stories" aspect. And where I spend some extra time with the music, Homeschoolblogger spends some very worthwhile time tracking down the history of a hymn's inclusion in the singing repertoire of the Churches of Christ.
