Monthly Archives: March 2019

New 12-Bell Music – All Things Bright and Beautiful

Spring has arrived! Here in Holland, Michigan we must admit that we’re sorry to say goodbye to those snowy winter days. However, we’re looking forward to our city’s annual Tulip Time festival in May!

To put us in the mood for spring, our latest 12-bell arrangement is the popular hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful. This hymn is sung to several different tunes, and the one in our arrangement is the seventeenth-century English melody ROYAL OAK.

Sight-reading on video!

Our thanks go to J.C. for being willing to help us play through some of our recent 12-bell titles during his recent visit to Michigan. We recorded this video on our first read-through, so absolutely no rehearsal went into this, but you’ll get the idea.

Playing this arrangement

As with all our 12-bell pieces, this arrangement is available in two versions. We played C5 to G6 in our video, but there’s also a version for F5 to C7.

If you’d like to play All Things Bright and Beautiful, you can purchase, download and print the sheet music from Choraegus. You need only pay once, and print out up to 6 copies of this 12-bell piece for your handbell choir.

If you haven’t bought music from us before, we’d recommend that you take a look at the licensing agreement and our step-by-step guide. We designed the guide to help you purchase and download our music in a stress-free way!

Looking for music for a full handbell choir?

If you look on the Choraegus site, you’ll also find our arrangement of All Things Bright and Beautiful for 3-5 octave handbell choir.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about our music, please check our frequently-asked questions first. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help!

All Things Bright and Beautiful - 12-bell handbells
Tulips in Holland, Michigan – bright and beautiful!

New 12-Bell Music – Country Gardens

Country Gardens is a traditional English folk melody and a popular Morris Dance tune. It was first published in 1728. Cecil Sharp collected it and passed it on to Percy Grainger. Grainger then arranged it for piano in 1918. It became one of Grainger’s best-known works and brought him great success.

The song was given the title English Country Garden by Jimmie Rodgers, who sung it in 1962 with the lyrics shown below:

“How many kinds of sweet flowers grow in an English country garden?
We’ll tell you now of some that we know; those we miss you’ll surely pardon
Daffodils, heart’s ease and flox, meadowsweet and lady smocks
Gentain, lupine and tall hollyhocks,
Roses, foxgloves, snowdrops, blue forget-me-nots
In an English country garden”

There are alternative, less flowery, words too. As children in England, Carla and her friends used to sing:

“What do you do if you can’t find a loo, in an English country garden?
Pull down your pants and exterminate the ants, in an English country garden”

Our third attempt – not perfect, but improving!

We had fun playing through this new arrangement for 12 handbells. Our thanks go to J.C. for helping us out during his short visit to Michigan. The video was only our third attempt at the piece, and we hadn’t quite mastered the middle section. However, with a bit more rehearsal time, this piece shouldn’t be too challenging.

Would you like to play Country Gardens?

If you’d like to play Country Gardens, the sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus.

If you haven’t bought music from us before, we recommend that you read the licensing agreement and our step-by-step guide.

Do you have questions?

If you have any questions, check out the Frequently-Asked Questions first. If you don’t find the answers you seek, please get in touch with us and we’ll be happy to help!

Thanks to everyone who’s bought music from us in recent months. We hope you’ll enjoy this piece!

Spring Concerts with the Kalamazoo Ringers

We’re excited to have joined the Kalamazoo Ringers for their spring concert season. Concerts with the Kalamazoo Ringers are always exciting!

The Kalamazoo Ringers (KR) is one of the oldest continuously-operating community choirs in the country. Janet Van Valey founded the group in 1981, and Martha Matthews recently took over as director. We first connected with Martha in 2015, when we travelled to Pennsylvania to perform with Philadelphia Bronze. We were delighted when she invited us to be part of the Kalamazoo Ringers for the spring 2019 season!

As we usually play duets, it’s an exciting adventure to be performing as part of a bigger group. In particular, Larry’s happy to have the opportunity to get back to playing those aluminum bass bells again!

Concerts with the Kalamazoo Ringers - bass handbells

The first concert of the spring season

We enjoyed the first concert of the spring season on Sunday. This took place at First Congregational Church of Battle Creek, Michigan. The Kalamazoo Ringers performed as part of the Sunday Afternoon Live concert series.

The theme of the concert was The Versatility of Handbells, and the varied program included Cathy Moklebust’s beautiful arrangement of Greensleeves, Arnold Sherman’s Misty, a lively In the Mood arranged by Hart Morris, and the cherry blossom-inspired Moon Over the Ruined Castle arranged by Kazuko Okamoto.

We appreciated the considerable talents of Gary Matthews, who played organ and trumpet, and Rose Wiersma, who played the clarinet. Rose is a dear friend of ours who directs the Zeeland Community Band. We’ve been taking a break from collaborating with the band while Larry’s been recovering from surgery, but we’re hoping to get back to performing with them soon!

The next concert is in Holland!

If you missed Sunday’s concert, there are still several more opportunities to see the Kalamazoo Ringers this season. The next concert is on Sunday, March 24th at 5:00pm in Holland!

Kalamazoo Ringers spring concert

Further information about the Kalamazoo Ringers and their upcoming concerts can be found on their website. We’re looking forward to making more beautiful music with the group in the next couple of months!

Kalamazoo Ringers - Larry and Carla

New 12-Bell Music – Give Me Jesus

Larry’s been writing a lot of new music in recent weeks, as he continues his recovery from surgery. His son J.C. recently came to visit (currently studying in Alabama). We enjoyed an opportunity to play through a few of the new 12-bell titles. The first to be available from Choraegus is the African-American spiritual Give Me Jesus.

New 12-bell music – Give Me Jesus

This piece proved not to be too difficult for the three of us to play, and would also work for six people with two bells each, of course. The video was recorded on only our third attempt at playing the piece – so it’s not perfect, but you’ll get a good idea of how it sounds. We’re playing the C5 to G6 version, but (as with all our 12-bell pieces) it’s also available for F5 to C7.

Would you like to play Give Me Jesus?

If you’d like to play this piece, the sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. If you’re new to buying Choraegus handbell music, we recommend our step-by-step guide. We designed this to keep the buying process as stress-free as possible!

Any questions?

If you have any questions about buying or playing our music, please get in touch with us and we’ll do our best to help. We also have a list of Frequently-Asked Questions!

We hope you’ll enjoy playing this piece. More 12-bell arrangements will be coming soon!

Give Me Jesus - 12-bell music