FAQ

woman singingThis page has the answers to some fre­quent­ly asked questions.

 

What is Protest in Harmony?
PiH is a com­mu­ni­ty of indi­vid­u­als who come togeth­er to sing about issues of peace, jus­tice, the envi­ron­ment & human rights. Every­one is wel­come; you do not need to be able to read music and there are no audi­tions. Many of us joined the group as an expres­sion of our pol­i­tics, or because we love singing togeth­er, or both!

Saturday Singing Sessions

When do we meet?
We meet once a month on a Sat­ur­day from 10am til 1pm. Click here for dates.
Where should I sit?
We most­ly sing in 3- or 4‑part har­mo­ny and sit with oth­ers who sing the same part. Gen­er­al­ly, high­er voic­es are to the right as you come into the room and low­er voic­es to the left.
What part should I sing?
You’re wel­come to sing any part which feels com­fort­able. Some songs have more parts than oth­ers, so feel free to move around to find a part you are hap­py singing.
Peo­ple are pay­ing at the door. How much should I pay? What does this cover?
We charge £7 full rate or £5 con­ces­sion for the Sat­ur­day ses­sions to cov­er the costs of hall rental, pho­to­copy­ing and a fee for song lead­ers. You can choose to pay by Stand­ing Order too. Ask the Treasurer.
10 to 1 seems awful­ly long. Is there a break?
There is, indeed! This is a good time to meet peo­ple and socialise. 
How are songs taught?
Each song leader’s style is dif­fer­ent, but all songs are taught by ear, with music usu­al­ly avail­able for those who want it. It helps us all to learn if we can lis­ten qui­et­ly while oth­er parts are being taught.
What if I’m late?
If you’re run­ning late, you’re wel­come to slip in, but we’re sor­ry that we won’t have time to go over any­thing you’ve missed.

girl singing
Events

What sort of events do we sing at?
We sing at infor­mal events such as demon­stra­tions, march­es and ral­lies, and slight­ly more for­mal per­for­mance-based events. All are in sup­port of a range of cam­paigns and caus­es. Infor­ma­tion will always be pro­vid­ed to enable you to choose whether or not you would like to participate.
What hap­pens at a demonstration?
One mem­ber of the choir acts as coor­di­na­tor, link­ing with event organ­is­ers and help­ing us all to stay togeth­er. Song sheets will be provided.
How is a per­for­mance different?
As per­for­mances are more for­mal, we need to know the songs and words well – for many per­for­mances we will need an extra rehearsal. Any­one wish­ing to take part needs to have rehearsed these songs with the per­for­mance group. Parts will often be avail­able on the web­site to help.
Do we meet socially?
In the past we have organ­ised res­i­den­tials, attend­ed music fes­ti­vals and held socials.

Organisation

How are we organised?
We have a com­mit­tee which meets online. If there’s some­thing you’d like the com­mit­tee to con­sid­er, get in touch on protestinharmony@gmail.com.; our con­sti­tu­tion is avail­able here.
How do we share information?
Infor­ma­tion is most­ly shared via an email list — add your email to the list at a month­ly singing ses­sion or email protestinharmony@gmail.com. to be added. Keep an eye on the web­site for up-to-date infor­ma­tion and a cal­en­dar of events. If you don’t have access to email, please let us know. We have a slot for brief announce­ments dur­ing the Sat­ur­day ses­sions, where those mak­ing announce­ments do their best to pro­vide print­ed details of events to save time.
How can I make suggestions?
We wel­come feed­back and sug­ges­tions for songs or events. These can be made by speak­ing to any com­mit­tee mem­ber or email­ing committee@protestinharmony.org.uk. Whilst feed­back is wel­come at any time, we also have a peri­od­ic eval­u­a­tion process.
Pri­va­cy: Our web­site and Face­book pages ben­e­fit the choir in spread­ing the word about what we do and what we stand for. How­ev­er there are impli­ca­tions for indi­vid­ual mem­bers regard­ing their pri­va­cy. As a rule it will be expect­ed that mem­bers would not post any­thing regard­ing Protest in Har­mo­ny actions on any pub­lic space with­out first seek­ing the per­mis­sion of any­one who is iden­ti­fi­able either visu­al­ly or by name.
State­ment about intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights and copyright
Protest in Har­mo­ny is an Edin­burgh-based rad­i­cal choir, hop­ing to make a change in the world. We are a non-prof­it-mak­ing organisation.
We respect the rights of authors, com­posers and arrangers to accrue com­mer­cial val­ue from their work. We clear­ly acknowl­edge our sources and authors, com­posers  and arrangers when these are known to us. We strive to obtain per­mis­sion from the copy­right hold­er wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. The use of lyrics does not result in the choir mak­ing finan­cial gain. We invite any­one who believes they hold copy­right of lyrics we have post­ed on this site to con­tact us.
If we have inad­ver­tent­ly infringed copy­right by includ­ing lyrics on our web­site, we will imme­di­ate­ly remove them. We do not accept any lia­bil­i­ty for wrong­ful use of any mate­r­i­al con­tained on our website.
We have a sep­a­rate page of links to oth­er sites where polit­i­cal songs can be locat­ed. We also include a link to the rel­e­vant site for every song whose prove­nance is known to us.