Is it legal to make my own transcription (a guitar lead sheet, for example) from a published work?

What about making your own transcription of a published work? Here's the deal: I play guitar in our praise band. We have spent a lot of money purchasing folios and collections of praise and contemporary worship music to "get legal." The vast majority of these works do not include guitar lead sheets. They are written for vocalists and pianists, and they usually run into many pages with page turns at the MOST awkward places for guitarists. In order to make this work, I sometimes make my own lead sheets by transcribing (not arranging) the songs, by hand, onto real paper. I'm the only one using them — everyone else seems to have enough hands to turn the pages. We own copies of the books for everyone in the band.

Response:

First, I commend you on your diligence to "get legal." You've hit on one of the problems with music publishing regularly experienced by most musicians, not just guitarists — inconvenient page turns. There's also the other problem you mention: the published score is for all instruments, so it takes up so many pages, when almost any single instrument could do better with a much shorter edition for that instrument only, which is the custom for orchestral music.

These are all problems overcome by the relatively simple procedure of transcribing your own lead sheet. The question is, however, is it legal? The answer is no, not without having obtained permission to do the transcription. In the act of transcribing, you are making a copy. Some copyright holders may even contend that by altering the original score that you legally purchased, you have made a new arrangement, even if you haven't altered the words, melody, or chords. As with many other questions about copyright, the inadequacy of the purchased score and the simplicity and usability of your solution do not constitute permission to make the transcription. That can be granted only by the copyright owner.

I cannot speak for any copyright owner, of course, but my guess is that if you contacted the owner, explained the situation, proposed your solution, and requested permission, you would be granted that permission. It is also possible the owner would grant you permission but charge you a small fee, or perhaps the owner has already prepared and makes available separately a version that you can use. All those decisions are entirely up to the copyright owner.