Horsham's Silver Strings ukulele troupe keen to get back on stage after lockdown

The Silver Strings are a ukulele troupe formed by members of the Horsham Combined Probus Club and have been performing across the Wimmera for the past few years, appearing at functions, special occasions and at nursing homes across the Wimmera and Southern Mallee.

The group was playing 27 functions a year before COVID, and are all raring to go once lockdown's over, according to the group's coordinator Edith Whyatt.

"We're missing all that now. We'd love to get out there and be able to play to people and put smiles on their faces," she said.

A chance visit from Bendigo's Probus Club's own ukulele troupe sparked the idea, and now Horsham's Silver Strings have gone above and beyond what was initially anticipated.

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"Six of them (from Bendigo) had a ukulele with them. I asked them how long they'd been playing, and they said 'oh, it's been three months!'. And I said, 'well, if you can do it, so can we'," Ms Whyatt said.

"Immediately I had a dozen people that were interested and now we have fifteen members, both men and women.

"We were lucky enough to get Bernadette Delahunty to join, she's a wonderful music teacher and she's been helping us a lot."

The group has kept up it's practise under Victoria's lockdowns, including COVID safe, outdoor sessions in the Sawyer Park Soundshell and catch-ups on Zoom.

"You're learning chords all the time, and so we've just added chords as we go. We've got quite a number that we know now, and there's a lot of the songs that we can play," Ms Whyatt said.

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The Silver Strings can now boast 214 songs as part of their repertoire, Ms Whyatt said.

"It's just a matter of practise, really. It's something you can practice at home and you get better as you go. The more you practice, the better you become," she said.

"If somebody was to tell me that I'd be playing the ukulele in front of an audience at my age, I would have told them they were silly.

You just never know. You're not never too old to do anything really. And we've gotten to know the group and a lot of them haven't had experience in music, or haven't since they had lessons as a child."

Ms Whyatt said the group had helped many people connect with music in a new way, and put a smile on audiences' faces.

"That's the beauty of the ukulele; you're playing chords, you're not playing the notes... it's a much easier way to learn music," she said.

"Music brings happiness to everybody. In this era with COVID, I think music is a savior for a lot of people."

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