JITSI Meet – It’s the spark that has given us at Penrith Harmony new life in this strange world of COVID-19. Much like Zoom and Houseparty, it allows us to meet (virtually) every Monday at 7.30pm – and Oh what a joy to see those faces and share a yarn!  Jokes sometimes at each other’s expense are shared and accepted in the spirit of true camaraderie. Experiences are shared; common themes being exercising, gardening, music, reading, spirituality, Netflix bingeing amongst others. If daylight saving had not ended, the next session would probably have included a Show and Tell to brag about the fruits of our labour! Surprisingly there is hardly any moderating required as we follow etiquette of not talking over each other, given the audio delay inherent in such applications.

We’ve been doing this for three weeks now and after some initial hesitation, at the last video call we had almost the same number of members we would normally have at rehearsal. Before the last session, our MD, Peter, uploaded the learning tracks and sheet music for Lullaby in Ragtime and Yesterday to the members page on our website and requested that we record ourselves (whilst listening to the training audio on headphone) and send him the recorded audio file. Peter will then put all our voices together on one track using Audacity.

It also gives Peter and his music team the opportunity to listen to individual voice recordings and provide valuable feedback. One of the best of us said he had to record himself four times before he dared send it and it was still ‘awful’. The learning of course is that we will practice at home incessantly before we send a recording that is our best.

As we go on, no doubt there will be more improvements and initiatives and we also look forward to learning from other groups.
 
Stay safe and well and Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
Rod de Sylva