Zoom Help

(courtesy of Sharps Folk Club, London)

Download in pdf format

Joining the singers' list
Click on the 'Participants' button. The participants list will appear on your screen. Look for the "Raise hand" button at the bottom of the list, and click on it - you're now in the singers' list. The host will call on you, and lower your hand once you've been called to sing. Please don't put your hand up a second time until you're asked to - it gets really confusing otherwise. Also, if time is getting on and you haven't been called to sing, it's worth checking to see if your blue hand is still up, especially if you've been having problems with your connection/bandwidth.

Muting
The hosts will mute everyone during songs. If you are the singer, wait until you've been muted - then unmute yourself to sing. Sadly this is the only way to do it, as the time delay turns choruses into chaoses! At the end of songs, we like to be unmuted so that the singers can hear our applause and cheers. The hosts will use the 'unmute all' button but it doesn't work for everyone, so please be ready to unmute yourself and applaud at the end of songs. You may get a message when you join the meeting asking you to approve the host to unmute you - if you say yes then the host will always be able to unmute you, which can be handy if wrestling with technology does not bring you joy.

Chat
Click on the chat icon to join in with the chat. You can send messages for everyone to read, or send a message to just one person. Apart from general chat, it's a good way to ask for help or alert people if something's gone wrong,

View
Switch between Gallery View, where you can see lots of people at once, and Speaker View, where the singer or speaker fills your screen.

Sound Quality
To improve how you sound when singing, click on the up arrow next to the mute button. Then click on Audio Settings, then the Advance button, then tick the box saying "show in-meeting option to Enable Original Sound" from microphone. there will then be a button on your screen to switch on "original sound", which is a better setting for singers. There are more tips on improving sound quality in the second half of this YouTube Video

Change your name on screen
There are various ways to change your name on the screen. The following instructions apply to Windows PCs and laptops, but it works in a similar way on other platforms.

go to the participants list and find your name. Click on More and then Rename.
In gallery view, find your video. Hover on it and click on the three dots (...) at the top right. Select Rename from the menu.
In gallery view, find your video. Right click on it. Select Rename from the menu.

It helps if you put your full name - especially if your forename is a common one!

last modified 10/19/2020 (hw)