A rather more brief Saturday Synopsis today – I can almost hear your sigh of relief!

The most important thing is to note that there are no choir rehearsals next week, partly due to the local elections. I'll be using the time wisely and whizzing off to Rome for a few days. On my itinerary is meeting up with a couple of italian choir leaders to see if we can set up some performances there. Watch this space!

As always, the dates for all the rehearsals are in the Calendar section of the Members' Area.

Congratulation to everyone who had a go at a solo this last week. Castle On The Hill on by no means an easy song to sing and you all did amazingly well. I'll be continuing the opportunities for solos and I really like the idea of several people taking a verse each and then having the rest of us sing the chorus.

Gigs

Our first gig is bearing down on us so when we're back (week starting Monday 6th May) we'll be using this rehearsal to run through the set. Please do spend as much time with the Music Player as you can. Even just having the songs playing along in the background is useful for getting the melodies into your head. And I've made some tweaks to the player which should hopefully make this a bit easier.

Bungay Workshop

I've just arrived home from the first ever Pop Club Choir workshop. I had such a fun time and it was lovely to see so many familiar, friendly faces. Do please tell your friends and family and we'll see if we can make this a weekly thing.

We did a mass of learning. Just Give Me A Reason completely whipped into shape and likewise (aside from a few tweaks) with I Can See Clearly Now. For me the three hours seemed to absolutely fly by. I hope they did for you too.

A huge thank you to everyone who came along, everyone who helped with the tea and coffee and of course to everyone who helped spread the word. It was a fantastic turn out and I'm very grateful to you all.

A quick reminder to anyone who came along: you're all most welcome to join us for our gigs (see the Calendar section in the Members' Area for dates, set list and more details). I grant you, you've got some learning to do but it's not necessary to be absolutely note perfect – you can always just mouth the words, or even sing the tune, if you get a bit lost – and I don't expect you to commit everything to memory for these first gigs. A nice, tidy binder for your words is perfectly acceptable.

Website

Only one website-related tweak this week which is that our Music Player now allows you to select which songs you want to listen to. You can choose between just listening to the versions with your part nice and loud, listening to the versions with all the voices at the same level, and of course, just playing everything that's available.

And in case you missed it, the Music Player will now play continuously. That is, when one song finishes, the next one will start automatically. So, if you like to listen while you're driving, or otherwise getting on with your day, you can now do so without having to be constantly stabbing away at the buttons!

Finally, just to say that it such a pleasure teaching you Bring Him Home these past few weeks and we will be including it in the set list for our gig at Sproughton on Sunday 12th May. You can find the list, and all other details, in the Calendar section of the Members' Area.

If you have any questions, you can email me at ed@popclubchoir.uk, or whatsapp, call or text on 07973 110075.

Ed X