Messages, polls, live annotations and file storage: four new features in cori

Most of the choirs we talk to organise themselves across half a dozen tools: the dates in a WhatsApp group, the poll for the Christmas party in a Doodle, the sheet music as a PDF email attachment, the director's markings on paper, and the recording of the last rehearsal as a link that nobody can find again on Sunday. Each of these tools works on its own. Together they leave a gap that information keeps falling into.

With this release we close four of those gaps at once: messages, polls, live annotations in the sheet music, and shared file storage. We're deliberately shipping them together because they belong together – a message needs an attachment, a decision needs a vote, an annotation needs the score it belongs to.

Messages: the whole choir in one place

In cori you can now message each other directly – one to one, in groups you create yourselves, or in the choir-wide channel. Every voice section automatically gets its own chat, and anyone who joins the choir or switches sections lands in the right one. A message "for the sopranos only" then really does reach only the sopranos, instead of going to the big list where half the choir reads along and nobody feels addressed.

It comes with everything you'd expect from a proper messenger: reactions with any emoji you like, replies to individual messages, forwarding to other chats, and attachments – photos straight from the camera, audio, video, PDFs and Office files up to 25 MB. Typo? Messages can be edited for 24 hours and deleted at any time. Ticks show whether a message has arrived and been read, unread counters show where something is still waiting, and anyone who wants some quiet mutes individual chats. All of it works in the app and on the web.

For each chat you can also set who is allowed to post. That turns the choir channel into a pure announcement channel whenever you want one, where only the director posts – and the information doesn't get buried under forty "Thanks!" replies. Reacting with an emoji still works.

The real point, though, isn't the feature list but the location: the communication lives where the sheet music, the dates and the recordings already live. Cancelling a rehearsal no longer means switching between three apps.

Polls: decisions in seconds

Choirs are constantly making small decisions that don't really warrant a meeting: which replacement date works? Black or navy for the concert? Which encore? Until now that meant creating a Doodle link, dumping it in the WhatsApp group, hoping enough people click, and counting by hand at the end.

Now you start a poll right in the chat, with single or multiple choice and a deadline – a week by default, after which the poll closes by itself. Results update live, the leading option is highlighted, and for each option you can see who voted for it. As long as a poll is open you can change or withdraw your own vote at any time – and whoever created the poll can still refine the question and options, or close it early once the matter is clear.

In groups and direct messages, by the way, anyone can start a poll, not just the director. And you can vote straight from the home screen: an open poll isn't a link you mean to click later and then forget, but something that's visible the moment you open the app.

Live annotations: your sheet music, current for everyone

This is the feature we spent the longest building. In cori you can draw directly into the sheet music during rehearsal – with pen and highlighter in several colours and line widths, with an eraser and an undo function. What's new: your singers see these annotations on their own device at the very same moment. No photographing the conductor's score, no "write a crescendo into bar 24" that half the room mishears.

So that this works in practice and doesn't end in a scribble, annotations can be controlled deliberately. There are three levels:

• Private – just for you, such as your own conducting notes.
• Section – only for one voice section, for example a breath mark that concerns only the tenors.
• Whole choir – visible to everyone.

That way each section sees exactly what is relevant to it. The director can additionally show and hide the annotations of individual sections – handy when you're rehearsing just the men's voices. By default only the director shares annotations beyond the private level; in the choir settings you can enable members to contribute annotations for their own section too.

One detail we wouldn't want to do without any more: jump markers. Set a marker at the repeat or the Dal Segno, and a single tap takes you straight to the right spot – no frantic page-turning in the middle of a piece.

File storage: an end to scattered attachments

The fourth feature is the least spectacular and perhaps the one that removes the most friction day to day: shared file storage for the choir. Sheet music, practice recordings, the programme booklet, concert photos – with folders, a recycle bin and previews right in the app: you can page through PDFs and play recordings directly, with no download and no third-party app. On the web you simply upload files by drag and drop.

For each file or folder you decide whether the contents are visible to all members or only to the directors – so a "Board" folder, together with everything in it, automatically stays with the leadership. With sharing links you can share individual files externally too, for instance a recording for a guest singer. The links expire automatically after one, seven or thirty days and can be withdrawn at any time before that – nothing circulates around the net forever.

And because the storage is part of the rest of cori, files can be linked straight into a message without uploading them twice. If someone loses access to a file, they no longer see the old chat attachment either.

Every choir gets a shared storage allowance that grows with the number of its members – half a gigabyte per person. So a choir with forty active singers has around 20 GB, at no extra cost.

Smaller improvements that make rehearsal life easier

Alongside the four big features, this release contains a few smaller things that take noticeable friction out of everyday use:

• Hands-free page turning with a Bluetooth pedal. Anyone accompanying on an instrument or with their hands busy conducting can now turn the pages with a foot pedal. cori works with all the common models that connect as a Bluetooth keyboard – from AirTurn to PageFlip.
• Freely selectable audio output. In the audio settings you choose which device handles playback and recording – Bluetooth headphones for practice, say, or an external microphone for cleaner recordings. The latency of Bluetooth headphones during recording can be compensated for at the same time.
• Octave independence when singing along. Low and high voices can now practise a part in their own octave without the feedback complaining.

A note on data

These features mean that more communication and more material now live in one place. Hence the usual but important note: all data is processed in line with GDPR on servers in the EU. There are no advertising networks in cori, and no behavioural data is sold. Messages and files belong to the choir, not to us.

How to get started

The features are available to all choirs with the current release. If you already use cori, update the app – the new areas appear automatically. If you're new:

You can see how the four features fit into the rest of cori in the feature overview. Questions, requests or feedback from your rehearsals go to info@getcori.app – we're reading along and usually reply within one business day.

---

Discover more: All cori features