Misc instruments "I can't sing" - course; very nervous

AlonW · Apr 30, 2026

I lost my voice when I had Covid. I was taking singing lessons during a break from sax, but I had to stop when I lost my voice. That's when I picked up the sax again. I think my voice is slowly coming back, but it's a long process.

mizmar · Apr 30, 2026

cappers said:
Happy Workers' Day comrades.
Power To The People!

There's only one, true solidarity tune

View: https://youtu.be/uKfWpUEXswQ

Tenor Viol · Apr 30, 2026

I had my first singing lessons for a while yesterday - looking at Vaughan Williams "Silent Noon" which I aim to perform at summer school in August.

View: https://youtu.be/fvoXZcMFUZ0

mizmar · May 1, 2026

1st May community breakfast.
Quite heartwarming

Finishing with The Internationale

They've been at this for 40 years. All free / volunteers

mizmar · Jun 12, 2026

Today we did an hour or so of - 11 - songs in the community hall for Ila dagen... A community day with events all round the area including peoples' gardens.
I guess there'll be some video posted - bits posted so far on FB

https://m.facebook.com/iladagan/

Good turnout

LarryS · Jun 12, 2026

physically I can sing, I have good pitch. But mentally, no way jose!

mizmar · Jun 12, 2026

LarryS said:
physically I can sing, I have good pitch. But mentally, no way jose!

How are your Norwegian dialects?

LarryS · Jun 13, 2026

mizmar said:
How are your Norwegian dialects?

Dunno, I'll go ask them...

thomsax · Jun 13, 2026

mizmar said:
Today we did an hour or so of - 11 - songs in the community hall for Ila dagen... A community day with events all round the area including peoples' gardens.
I guess there'll be some video posted - bits posted so far on FB

https://m.facebook.com/iladagan/

Good turnout

View attachment 35467

Seems like you were having a good time.

MikeMorrell · Jun 13, 2026

From about 1974 to 1978 (50 years ago!) I had good contacts with a couple of Norwegians. I'd visited Norway a couple of times and was invited to a 2-week 'Jazz Festival'. At which I met a quite a few people who lived in and around Trondheim. It's such a beautiful country and I had such a great time. I met such lovely people (and - as a follow-up) had some great Norwegian visitors to London, that I really wanted to get a job there. Though I had a couple of interviews, it was unfortunately it was not to be. Mainly because of the - then - Norwegian labor laws which prohibited employers from employing 'foreigners' for jobs that Norwegians could also do.

After a couple of years, I lost lost touch with my Norwegian friends through moving jobs and addresses. I've never been been back to Norway but it still has a special place in my heart. The 4-day "Iladagan" festival (from Google translate) looks wonderful!

mizmar · Jun 13, 2026

MikeMorrell said:
Norwegian labor laws which prohibited employers from employing 'foreigners' for jobs that Norwegians could also do.

To be clear, at this time there is no such law.
Norway operates - by and large - under EU/EEA non-discrimination regulations. They aren't as good at it as the British at their best (where). In my experience.

thomsax · Jun 14, 2026

MikeMorrell said:
I met such lovely people

You must be kidding? 😉

mizmar said:
Norway operates - by and large - under EU/EEA non-discrimination regulations. They aren't as good at it as the British at their best (where). In my experience.

The Nordic countries; Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the self-govering regions Greenland, Faroe Island and Åland are some kind of mini EU.

AlonW · Jun 23, 2026

AlonW said:
I lost my voice when I had Covid. I was taking singing lessons during a break from sax, but I had to stop when I lost my voice. That's when I picked up the sax again. I think my voice is slowly coming back, but it's a long process.

I'm happy to say my voice is pretty much back, but it's too late. The sax bug bit me hard, especially since I found a nice MacSax 8 tenor that came with a very good D'Addario Jazz Select D8M mouthpiece. I can't stop now! I still like to sing though.

mizmar · Aug 26, 2026

New semester starting at the end of the month

Before which We've been summoned to celebrate the local "pub"s 15th... This evening.
Quite last minute, so I've quickly reviewed the songs

Quick decode
Trygve Brøske is our current director
Brannstasjon means Fire Station .. I guess someone stuck the 'i' in there because it used to have books? It's very small...

mizmar · Aug 26, 2026

mizmar said:
celebrate the local "pub"s 15th.

I was going to say, inviting a choir is a great way to sell beer..
.. but 1 free beer, so 👍🏽

Tenor Viol · Aug 27, 2026

I did my solo singing option at the recent summer school. It was a bit mixed. I didn't think Silent Noon was sufficiently good to present for the concert, and sang The Sky Above the Roof instead, which was well-received.

I did then work on Silent Noon, but I wasn't happy with how it was being critiqued. I was the only person in the group presenting a classical 'art song', all but one other were singing music theatre stuff, the odd one out singing folk songs. The tutor has a musical theatre background.

mizmar · Aug 27, 2026

No solo singing for me!

The dirty secret in this "all comers welcome" choir, i think, is that there are some chaps with strong, trained voices that do the heavy lifting - and the rest of us hide behind them... Stand Infront and they'll take ya eardrums out!

mizmar · 2026-09-30T17:10:02+0100

This semester the steering committee has decided we're using the ChoirMate app.

Till now there's a shared OneDrive with most the Words/Notes pdfs and tunes in Tenor 1,2 Bass 1,2 and all... Sometimes, anyway. Pluss a private Facebook group with occasional announcements. Sometimes, anyway.
So it all kind of works but with holes.
They do print off and hand out the words.

The app can do the calendar thing and hold pdfs and mp3 files - and is very eager to sell upgrades for things like annotation and such... Pester power.
My suspicion is it'll kind of work but with holes.

My self, as with everything musicering, I use MobileSheets which has annotations, playback, etc. And I can download from the new app as easily as the shared drive - if there's material to be had.

MikeMorrell · 2026-09-30T23:20:55+0100

mizmar said:
This semester the steering committee has decided we're using the ChoirMate app.

Till now there's a shared OneDrive with most the Words/Notes pdfs and tunes in Tenor 1,2 Bass 1,2 and all... Sometimes, anyway. Pluss a private Facebook group with occasional announcements. Sometimes, anyway.
So it all kind of works but with holes.
They do print off and hand out the words.

The app can do the calendar thing and hold pdfs and mp3 files - and is very eager to sell upgrades for things like annotation and such... Pester power.
My suspicion is it'll kind of work but with holes.

My self, as with everything musicering, I use MobileSheets which has annotations, playback, etc. And I can download from the new app as easily as the shared drive - if there's material to be had.

Hi Mizmar, our BigBand did a (free 30-day) trial with a paid app similar to ChoirMate. A big difference is that ChoirMate has a free version, which ours didn't. But with some restrictions. Such as a maximum of 15 songs in the repertoire and 10 audio files per user. But if you can work within these restrictions, go for it!
The conclusion of our 'evaluation period' of our app (not ChoirMate!) was that the monthly costs were much too high for our budget in comparison to what we currently use. Which is is a combination of a WhatsApp group for communication (numbers planned for the next rehearsal, member absences at rehearsals, new rehearsal recordings, etc.) with links to a shared Google Drive folder containing scores (pdf), parts(pdf), recordings of rehearsals (.mp3), etc.

Just my personal opinion, but our (and my) experience is that communication via a WhatsApp group is much more immediate and 'up-to-date' (via mobile phone 'alerts') than via a Facebook group. Via a WhatsApp group, members can post things an hour or two before rehearsals explaining their lateness or absence at rehearsals, Such as (for example) "Sorry, stuck in traffic, I won't be there before 21.00 or "Sorry, I won't be at the rehearsal tonight due to backpain/migraine/etc.". They can also give 'advance notice': "I won't be at the rehearsals on (or between) certain dates because ....".

I've used MobileSheets and it works like a dream!

Just out of curiosity, what's your current choir called? So that I can find it's page on Facebook.

BTW. I absolutely love the Ila dagen FB page. Especially the 'reels'!

Mike

mizmar · 2026-09-30T23:40:04+0100

Actually, I'm making no input into the comms strategy, tech etc. even if the steering committee was on top of all the holes - the group is probably to diverse (old, crotchety, drunk) to make anything other than printed words and in persons announcements reliable!