IT’S GENIUS!
- mypopchoirsing
- Jul 1
- 4 min read
The opportunity to sing your heart out has always been the goal of My Pop Choir. Now MPC has adopted a software system, designed especially for choirs, that offers you many exciting new benefits.
The Choir Genius platform (developed in Canada) will handle everything from registration to communicating to practising. After a trial period to evaluate the system, MPC owner Alex Fiddes, along with MPC Business and Planning Advisor Naomi Uy, decided that Choir Genius (CG) was the right move both to enhance the overall choir experience and also to streamline administration. My Pop Choir will have both a CG mobile app and a web site that offer a range of features.
Naomi took on the role of project manager. “We started with a group of nine testers, some hesitant, some super excited.”
Because our choirs consist of a mixed age group, the change in technology raised some questions. But the reaction of the testing group put any concerns to rest. “It can seem scary at first,” says Naomi. “But once people are using Choir Genius and they discover the beauty of it, they can’t imagine being a member without it.”
Marilyn Harris, who has sung with the Oakville choir since 2011, describes herself as “sort of tech savvy.” She was one of the testers to first try out Choir Genius.
“I was a little bit apprehensive,” she says. “I was also a bit skeptical, but I knew that Alex is very thorough in the decisions he makes, so I thought ‘I’ll go with it’. Also, I looked online and saw that Choir Genius is used by many prestigious choirs such as the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.”
“Once I got registered, it was really great,” she adds.
Bettina Goodwin, the MPC Production Manager, is the first to admit that initial Choir Genius registration can seem challenging. She receives all the e-mails asking for help, so she knows!
“Some people can be discouraged by the set-up process because first you have to fill in your data and then we upload it,” she points out. “Then you set up your account and then you can register.”
But here is the hugely significant point to keep in mind. “That’s not the same process going forward,” says Bettina. “Once you have acquired your CG account, all you will have to do is register each term, which is fairly simple.”
And choir members can find out all sorts of information themselves without seeking help (although help is always available). For instance, they can find out if they are registered, find the How to Guides, pay an invoice, and discover upcoming events. And the links to the How-to Guides are at the end of this blog.
“It’s a great platform,” says Joanna Waine, one of the initial Choir Genius testers and an Oakville singer. “I would think that anything that’s dedicated to helping choirs is a good thing. We tested it to its limits and it’s really useful.”
Joanna’s advice: “Follow the instructions. We hope they are foolproof because we’ve tested them! Don’t try and skip ahead and think ‘oh I know what I’m doing’ because it has to be done in a certain order.”
Diana Chong is a friend of Naomi’s from the Oakville choir and is a retired business analyst. Naomi asked her to help out by using her experience to think of Choir Genius from the user’s perspective. She also does a lot of the essential data conversion, from the data collected by Alex, Bettina and Naomi.
“I had no idea about everything that goes on administratively behind the MPC scenes,” says Diana. “This is the perfect time now to make the switch to Choir Genius as we could have as many as 1000 people registering for fall. And registration is super easy now.”
She and Naomi worked hard to figure out the best way to configure CG. “All the choirs run a bit differently in their many locations.”
And, as is always the case with My Pop Choir, giving our singers the best experience possible is the most important goal.
“I hope that people will love it because it’s going to be convenient and helpful,” Diana says.
Marilyn agrees about the nature of Choir Genius: “Once I got into the app I was really blown away by how thoughtfully created it was and how it met so many needs for a choir.
WHAT CHOIR GENIUS LETS YOU DO:
Slow down the music, pause, or loop it
Sort the order of the tracks
Use the metronome and/or pitch pipe to help follow the music accurately
Connect CG to your car and it will appear as a separate logo. It will be differently placed from your other music, different from YouTube music
Download your particular voice track plus the all-voices track and go back and forth easily
Connect CG via Bluetooth to your in-home speakers to rock out as you practise!
Check out the in-app bulletins, with titles and dates, making them easily accessible, e.g. dates of Family and Friends concerts
Find out what songs are being worked on at various locations, ideal for choir hoppers
Sync CG with your Google calendars to add choir dates
If you haven’t yet set up your account, Bettina highly recommends reading and following the How to Guide for Setting up Your CG Account. Here is the link:
And to help you register, read the How to Guide for Registration.
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