Getting Started for Members: From Invitation to Your First Rehearsal

Your choir director has just invited you to Chorilo. Depending on how your choir has set things up, this invitation reaches you in one of two ways – either as an email with ready-made login credentials, or as a registration link sent to you via WhatsApp, SMS or another personal message. This article walks you through the first few minutes with Chorilo – from signing in through installing the app to the features you will use again and again in your choir's daily life. You don't need any special prior knowledge. If you can open a message and start an app, you're perfectly prepared.

Option 1: You received login credentials by email

If your choir director has set up your account directly in Chorilo, you'll find a welcome message in your inbox containing your email address as username and an automatically generated starter password. With exactly these details you can sign in either through the website at www.chorilo.com or directly in the mobile app. We recommend replacing the starter password with your own secure one in your profile the first time you log in. Choose something you can still remember easily – a whole sentence in which individual letters are replaced by digits works better in practice than a cryptic string you'll have forgotten within a week. If the welcome message doesn't appear in your inbox, it's worth checking your spam or promotions folder, because some email providers initially sort messages from new senders into those folders.

Option 2: You received a registration link

Alternatively, your choir director may have sent you a personal registration link – often via WhatsApp, SMS or another message. In this case no account has been created for you yet; you set one up yourself through the link. After you click on it, a registration page opens where you first enter your basic information. Only your email address, first and last name and your agreement to the terms of use and privacy policy are mandatory. All other fields – voice part, gender, address, phone number, date of birth, wedding anniversary, entry date, IBAN and any additional fields defined by your choir – are optional, but can already be filled in here. Doing so spares the choir director later follow-up questions and also benefits you, because events and information will match your voice part from the outset.

By the way, you don't set a password yourself on this page. As soon as you submit the form, Chorilo automatically generates a secure password for you and sends it together with your login details by email – from then on things proceed just like in option 1: sign in, replace the starter password with your own whenever convenient, done. The registration link is personal to you and should therefore not be forwarded to other people.

Installing the app on your smartphone or tablet

Chorilo consists of two parts: a web application at www.chorilo.com, used primarily by choir directors, and a mobile app for iPhone, iPad and Android. As a member you'll work almost exclusively with the app, because it shows you everything essential on the go – events, announcements, sheet music and chats. The app is free of charge and always available in the official app stores. For iPhone and iPad, download it from the Apple App Store; for Android devices you'll find it in the Google Play Store. Alternatively, simply search for "Chorilo" in the store.

After installation, open the app and you'll land directly on the sign-in screen. Enter the email address and the starter password you received from Chorilo by email. You don't need to create an additional account – web and app share the same login. Once signed in, the app stays signed in until you explicitly log out or uninstall it. You can also sign in on several devices at the same time, for example on your own phone and the family tablet.

The home screen and the most important areas

After signing in, the dashboard opens. This overview page shows you at a glance what's currently important: upcoming events, new announcements from your choir, open tasks and upcoming birthdays of your fellow singers. Using the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen you reach the individual areas – events, announcements, chat, sheet music and your profile. If you sing in several ensembles or sub-choirs at the same time (for example in a main choir and a project ensemble), the content from all ensembles is shown together. On some pages, such as the event list or the sheet music overview, a filter is available which you can use to narrow down the view to a specific ensemble if needed.

Viewing and confirming events

The area you'll open most often in daily life is the event overview. There you'll find all rehearsals, performances, meetings and special events of your choir – arranged chronologically and each with location, time and a short description. A tap on an event opens the detail view, where you can additionally see which sheet music is scheduled, what directions are provided and who has already confirmed. Especially for performances or outings, this overview helps you get a quick picture of what's planned.

Directly inside the event you'll find three buttons for your response: Confirm, Decline and Maybe. One tap is enough, and your answer is saved. The choir director sees in real time how many singers to count on. You can change your response at any time – simply tap a different option again. Some events additionally have a response deadline; once this has passed, your most recently chosen answer remains valid, and the choir director can see at a glance from whom no reaction has come in yet. If an event is rescheduled or added at short notice, you are automatically notified so that you don't miss anything.

Announcements, polls and chat

Next to events, announcements form the heart of communication. Your choir director uses this area to introduce new pieces, give notes about the next concert or prepare decisions. Announcements can contain attachments such as PDFs, images or audio recordings; you can respond with a brief comment and, if the choir director allows it, post your own contributions as well. If the choir director starts a poll – for example to choose a concert programme or the date of an outing – the answer options appear directly within the announcement, and you cast your vote with a single tap.

The chat area sits alongside it and serves as a space for casual, direct exchange. Here you can hold one-to-one conversations with other members or join in group chats you've been added to. For many ensembles this quickly replaces the classic WhatsApp group, because all members are reachable anyway and messages no longer need to run through private messengers. The chat function is fully integrated into Chorilo, so you don't have to switch between several apps just to send your choir a quick message.

Sheet music and rehearsal material

A particular advantage of Chorilo is the digital sheet music folder. In the sheet music area you'll find all pieces your choir director has released for you. You can view the PDFs directly in the app, zoom with your fingers, swipe between pages and, if you wish, add your own notes with a finger or stylus. These annotations belong to you alone and are stored in Chorilo, so they're available in sync on all your devices – if you make a note on your tablet, you'll find it again on your smartphone the next time you open it. For many pieces the choir director also provides practice recordings or warm-up videos that you can play directly from the sheet music view – a comfortable way to learn a new voice reliably without having to search for extra files.

Notifications via push and email

So that you don't miss any important information, Chorilo informs you through several channels at once. As soon as the choir director creates a new event, publishes an announcement or starts a poll, you receive a push notification on your device. In parallel you receive the same information by email, so you stay up to date even when the app isn't open. Reminders for upcoming events usually arrive one or two days in advance as a gentle nudge, so that you don't forget your confirmation. You can adjust the channel on which you receive these notifications at any time in your profile settings. To do so, open your profile in the app and then the Notifications item. There the two channels email and push can be switched on or off independently of each other: by default both are active, but you can also keep just one of them, for example if you no longer want additional push notifications.

Settings in the profile area

It's worth taking a look at your profile right after first signing in. At the top you can upload a photo – this helps new choir members to remember names and faces more quickly – and edit your name as well as your email address, in case a typo has crept in anywhere. Optionally, a second notification email address can be stored, if you'd prefer the emails from Chorilo to be routed to a different address than your main account. You can also choose your preferred language here from all eight languages supported by Chorilo.

Directly below you'll find the function to change your password – a good moment to replace the starter password you were sent with one of your own that you can easily remember. An overview "My Ensembles" shows all choirs you belong to together with your respective role. In the Notifications section you toggle the push and email channels on or off independently, and if your device supports it, you can activate biometric sign-in via fingerprint or face recognition.

Below that follow a few comfort features that adapt Chorilo to your preferences: you can choose between light design, dark design or the automatic adoption of the system setting, and additionally increase accessibility – for example through stronger contrasts or larger text. Specially for performances there's the brightness reminder: if you open sheet music before a concert and your screen is set brighter than your chosen threshold, the app reminds you to reduce the brightness so that you don't dazzle your audience. A final button clears the sheet music cache on your device if required, for example when storage space is running low. Using the buttons at the very bottom you can rate the app, submit feature requests, contact support or sign out.

And now?

That's the initial setup done. You've installed the app, signed in with your credentials and got to know the most important areas. From now on it's enough to open the app regularly to stay up to date – everything else will follow naturally in daily life. If you get stuck somewhere, an AI chatbot is available in the app to answer your questions about Chorilo in natural language. And your choir director is only ever a short chat away. We wish you much enjoyment with Chorilo and, above all, with your choir.