This week we’re pleased to bring you another piece that we performed during our trip to California. We played this one at the lunchtime concert at the Bay Area Spring Ring. It’s the traditional Dutch tune Al die Willen te Kaap’ren Varen, usually known to us as the “Dutch pirate song”. It’s another one of the pieces we enjoy playing during street performances.
If you’d like to play Al die Willen te Kaap’ren Varen, the sheet music is now available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group.
How to purchase handbell music from Choraegus
If you haven’t purchased music online from Choraegus before, you might like to look at our step-by-step guide. We designed this to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a (we hope!) stress-free way. Please note that our music is designed to be downloaded as PDFs. You’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. Purchase gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and online video-sharing. Please remember to mention the title and arranger in any video descriptions and on any printed materials.
Any questions?
If you have any questions about our music, please start by reading our Frequently-Asked Questions. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us, and we’ll do what we can to help!
Calliope House is a fun addition to our 8-bell repertoire. It’s a jig written by Dave Richardson of the Irish band Boys of the Lough. The piece was originally written in honor of George Balderose, the founder of the Pittsburgh Folk Music Society, who used to host house concerts in his home – Calliope House.
This tune is, oddly, more difficult to play than it looks. We usually save it for street performances. Somewhere on Facebook there’s a video entitled The Perils of Street Performing. The video shows us playing this piece on a ridiculously-windy day in Downtown Holland.
Anyway, we brought the piece out for this slightly jet-lagged performance at our All the Way from Holland concert in the California Bay Area in May 2019. The third page has a tendency to trip us up when we haven’t quite had enough sleep, and this performance was no exception. Still, we always enjoy playing it, and we love a challenge, of course.
Would you like to play this arrangement?
If you’d like to play Calliope House, the sheet music is now available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group. Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and online video sharing.
Please note that our music is designed to be downloaded as PDFs, so you’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail.
If you haven’t purchased music online from Choraegus before, you might like to look at our step-by-step guide, designed to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a (we hope!) stress-free way.
Any questions?
If you have any questions about our music, please start by reading our Frequently-Asked Questions. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us, and we’ll do what we can to help!
These are challenging times for musicians, as we practise social distancing to help slow down the spread of COVID-19. As members of Kalamazoo Ringers, we were disappointed when the decision was made to stop rehearsing for the season. We were all sorry to have to cancel our spring concerts and mini-tour to Ohio. Yes, it was the right decision, but wow, we’d worked hard on all that concert repertoire. We’d really been looking forward to sharing it!
Painful times indeed. However, we still have to do the responsible thing and take care of the health of our family, friends and wider community. So, social distancing it is. Add to that – plenty of hand-washing, catching up with our to-do list, and a bit of rest and relaxation!
Keeping busy as a handbell duo
As a handbell duo, we’re in the fortunate position of being able to continue our own handbell rehearsals as usual. We have bells in our home, and many hours’ worth of 8-bell music. We definitely don’t expect to be bored! We’re working on more 8- and 12-bell music, and will continue making new arrangements available from Choraegus.
We’re happy to find that many people are finding our 8- and 12-bell music useful, at a time when many groups can’t get together to rehearse and perform. Churches are increasingly holding services online. Live-streaming is becoming the new way for people to gather in worship together. For handbell choirs that can’t get together to rehearse, 8-bell music could be the answer! We have an extensive selection of hymns, in both standard and surprisingly-easy versions. There’s still time to purchase and download music to share online for Holy Week, Easter, or during the summer months. This could also be a great opportunity to work on 4-in-hand skills!
An example of an 8-bell hymn arrangement – Just As I Am (standard version)
The answers to some of your questions
People have been asking us additional questions about playing our music during this time of social distancing, so we’ll answer some of them here:
YES — If you purchased music from Choraegus, you have permission to play the music as part of an online worship service or online performance. Please see the licensing agreement for a few exceptions where additional permission may be necessary.
YES — We give permission for you to live-stream music purchased from Choraegus during a worship service, or to record it as part of the service, for sharing on church websites and/or social media.
YES – If you can’t get together with other musicians to play our music, and you’d like to play all the parts yourself and edit them together, you have permission to do this.
YES – You are allowed to upload any video you make to YouTube or another video-sharing site for the purposes of sharing with others online (see requirement below about crediting the source of the music).
YES — If you can’t get together with a fellow musician to rehearse music, and need to use pre-existing recordings, you are welcome to use our own YouTube videos as part of your worship service, or share our videos on social media or by email.
Things you need to do
Please give the title of the piece, and credit the arranger in your church bulletin or online recording, under the terms of our published licensing agreement. If you post/share a video on YouTube or other video-sharing/social media site, please include a link to www.choraegus.com in the video description.
Questions for us?
If you have any other questions, check our our list of frequently-asked questions. If you don’t find the answer you need, please contact us, and we’ll be happy to help.
We hope you enjoy playing our music, and we thank you all for your support at this time. Take care, and stay healthy!
At Los Altos Lutheran Church, CA (Photo: Carl S. Gutekunst) – May 2018
Some 8-bell pieces are very easy to play, requiring little rehearsal time. Gwerzy is not one of those pieces. Colm O’Snodaigh and Dee Armstrong, of the Irish band Kíla, kindly gave us permission to arrange Gwerzy for handbells. It’s fun to play, for anyone who enjoys a bit of a challenge.
We first performed this arrangement in California at the 2019 Bay Area Spring Ring. We announced it to the audience as a work-in-progress. To be honest, it will probably always be a work-in-progress for us! We had originally planned to record a 100%-accurate and polished performance of this piece before offering it for purchase. We’ve now decided to let others join in the fun, without waiting for something that might never happen!
Gwerzy – at the 2019 Bay Area Spring Ring in CaliforniaGwerzy – excerpt
If you’re feeling insane courageous enough to try this arrangement, you’ll find the sheet music to download from Choraegus.
Things to know about Choraegus handbell music
As always, we strongly recommend that you read the licensing agreement before buying music from us. Please also note that our music is designed to be downloaded as PDFs. You’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group.
If you’re new to Choraegus, you might appreciate our step-by-step guide. We designed this to help our customers buy and download music in a (we hope!) stress-free way.
We’re happy to answer questions!
If you have any questions about purchasing or playing our music, please start by reading our Frequently-Asked Questions. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us, and we’ll do what we can to help. We hope you’ll enjoy playing our music!
Can you help us find this wedding ring, lost in Holland, Michigan?
It’s now been several months since Larry’s wedding ring went missing. He lost the two-tone gold band in September 2019, just days before our 7th wedding anniversary.
It was a busy day for Larry. He made trips to both the north side and south side of Holland – grocery shopping at Meijer and Family Fare, going to the gym (Anytime Fitness), 5/3 Bank (on Butternut), Sam’s Club, Walmart, D&W Fresh Market, and Third Reformed Church. He also walked to and from Family Fare and Creek Edge (on Timberline Acres). At some point in the evening, he realised that he no longer had his wedding ring.
We retraced Larry’s steps as much as possible, and searched around our house and garage… but there’s been no sign of the missing wedding band, and we are heartbroken. We reported the loss to local police, and on Facebook, but the ring hasn’t been found or returned to us. It might have been found, sold, taken to a pawn shop… and it might be on someone else’s finger by now. Whatever happened, we’d love to know.
Please help us find the missing ring!
Even though it seems unlikely that the ring will find its way back to us at this point, we still can’t bring ourselves to give up hope. If you see this wedding ring anywhere, please let us know, and we will be forever grateful for your help!
Wow! Where did the last month go? Maybe it was because Thanksgiving was late this year, or maybe we didn’t plan ahead enough. It seemed as if November was here one minute, then December was going by, faster than we could keep up with it!
We had a fun and interesting holiday performance season, and managed to escape without having to make any long trips in bad weather. That’s no mean feat in Michigan winters! Many of our Christmas performances are booked months ahead. That makes it impossible to predict if the weather’s going to be cooperative or not.
Our 2019 holiday performances
Our 2019 holiday performance season began the day after Thanksgiving, with our first of two performances at the Kerstmarkt. This annual Christmas market in Downtown Holland is a definite highlight of our holiday season. The bells seem to add something magical to the atmosphere at an outdoor holiday market. We hope to be back again in 2020!
Our handbells at the 2019 Kerstmarkt in Downtown Holland
An exciting new event for us was the Santa and Reindeer event at the Otsego District Public Library. We met Felix the Fox there!
With Felix the Fox at the Otsego Library “Santa and Reindeer” event
We were pleased to present another holiday performance at the Gary Byker Memorial Library in Hudsonville. This was our second time at the Christmas program there, and we hope to return in December 2020. It’s always a popular, entertaining and educational Christmas event, run by the Friends of the Library.
A holiday handbell program at the GRAM
We had an exciting opportunity to present a handbell duet concert at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, as part of their Light the Night event. The audience was small but appreciative, and had not been expecting us, since the event had been given an air of mystery and advertised only as a “holiday bell music performance”. People were pleasantly surprised at the amount of music that can be made with only eight bells at a time, and we chatted with audience members afterwards and explained more about the history and techniques used in playing our instruments.
A “holiday bell music performance” at the Grand Rapids Art Museum
Another performance with the Zeeland Community Band
We presented several handbell duet programs to residents at senior living communities again this year, and also joined the Zeeland Community Band for their annual Christmas concert.
With director Rose Wiersma after the annual Zeeland Community Band Christmas concert
Our handbell ministry activities
We continued our handbell ministry through Advent and Christmas, and shared our music with churches in Holland and Grand Rapids. We also went on a road-trip to Glenview, Illinois. It was a new experience for us to do fierce battle with Chicago traffic!
Handbells at a Christmas worship service in IllinoisChristmas Eve at Christ Memorial Church, Holland MI
Playing Christmas music for the Salvation Army
We gave ten hours to help raise funds for the Salvation Army of Holland, MI, and enjoyed playing Christmas music at D&W Fresh Market – our fourth year there! In recent years, some of our friends have questioned our decision to support the Salvation Army. However, we are always encouraged to hear from people who have received invaluable help from the organization here in West Michigan. This happens every year; people stop by the Red Kettle to tell us that the Salvation Army was there to support them at a time when they most needed it. We are constantly reassured that the local organization is doing amazing work in this community.
Volunteering at the Salvation Army Red Kettle at D&W Fresh Market in Holland
The New Year has arrived, and as we look back at the 2019 holiday season, we’re looking forward to the new adventures 2020 will bring.
We’d like to thank the following people and organizations:
The Kerstmarkt in Downtown Holland, MI Cherry Republic of Holland, MI D&W Fresh Market, Holland, MI The Salvation Army of Holland, MI Otsego District Public Library, MI Zeeland Community Band Waterford Place Assisted Living, Jenison, MI Friends of the Gary Byker Library, Hudsonville, MI Sunset Retirement Communities, Jenison, MI Grand Rapids Art Museum, MI Third Reformed Church of Holland, MI The Village at the Pines, Grand Haven, MI Wespath Benefits and Investments, Glenview, IL Christ Memorial Church, Holland, MI North Park Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
We’d like to thank everyone who helped to make this holiday season bright for us. If you booked us for a performance or Christmas program or wrote a review of our performance – thank you. To all those who offered us coffee or a meal, chatted with us, or prayed for our safe travels – thank you. If you took the time to say thank you or send us a card – we appreciate you. If you liked our Facebook page, emailed us, bought and downloaded sheet music from our music site, or purchased a copy of The Bass Ringer’s Notebook – we appreciate you too!
We hope 2020 will be a happy and healthy year for you all!
The holiday season tends to start early in the handbell world. We’ve been rehearsing Christmas music with the Kalamazoo Ringers for a number of weeks now. However, we put off starting our own Christmas duet practising until after our Be Still, My Soul concert in Gregory.
The time is now here, and we’re starting to work on Christmas music. We’re getting ready for the first of our holiday performances, at the Kerstmarkt in Downtown Holland, on Friday, November 29th. This European-style market is an annual event here in Holland, and this will be our third year there. It’s always a fun and festive shopping opportunity, and a chance to enjoy delicious food and watch interesting demonstrations by local craftspeople.
We still have some limited availability for holiday handbell performances in December – so if you’d like West Michigan’s smallest handbell choir to come and play at your event, worship service or holiday party, please get in touch. If we can’t fit you into our schedule for this year, let’s plan early for 2020!
Before we launch into rehearsals for Advent and Christmas, we have just one more performance to do! Tomorrow we’ll be driving across Michigan to Gregory, to play in the morning service at Southwest Church of the Nazarene. In the afternoon we’ll be presenting a handbell duet concert of hymns and beautiful melodies to soothe your soul and lift your spirits. We’ll be playing well-known hymns such as Holy Manna, It Is Well with my Soul, and Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing. We’ll also be playing some traditional pieces from Scotland, Ireland, Holland and Japan. We might even sneak in a couple of Advent and Christmas carols, because that season is fast-approaching! There will also be a chance to ask us questions about our music and our instruments.
Admission to the concert is free, with an opportunity for a free-will offering. We’d love to see you there!
Would you like us to play handbells at your church?
We have a wide repertoire of handbell duets suitable for worship, or for concerts. We invite you to read about our handbell ministry, and look at independent reviews of our performances. Please contact us if you’d like us to play a handbell duet concert at your church. We’re based in Holland, Michigan, but we’re happy to travel nationwide or internationally.
We’re thrilled to be able to share this video of Larry’s original compositionA Minor Crash, recorded at the 2019 Bay View Week of Handbells concert. This piece is fun to play! You can even see some of the musicians dancing along, which is exciting to see at a handbell performance!
Rocking out to A Minor Crash!
A Minor Crash is written for 5-8 octaves of handbells and optional handchimes. An additional cajón part is available. The cajón part is written by Alex Guebert, who also plays it in the concert video. It’s a Level 4 piece, with some interesting challenges for bass handbell enthusiasts. There’s also an alternative simplified section for less-adventurous performers!
Sheet music for A Minor Crash
If you’d like to play this piece, the sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from our music site, Choraegus.
Many thanks to Pierpont Productions
Our thanks go to Pierpont Productions, who graciously allowed us to share the video from the 2019 Bay View Week of Handbells concert. They make a wonderful recording of the Bay View handbell concert each year. CDs and videos of previous concerts are available. If you’d like one, contact us, and we’ll put you in touch!
In the weeks since we came back from the Bay View Week of Handbells, we’ve appreciated the opportunity to focus on our handbell ministry. We’ve very much enjoyed being a part of worship services at several West Michigan churches. Now we’re wrapping up the summer, and reflecting on the last few months’ activities.
Just after we returned from Bay View, we made our first visit to Muskegon Central United Methodist Church. We played prelude, offertory and special music in their traditional Sunday morning service.
Our handbells in the beautiful sanctuary at Muskegon Central UMC
This summer we also played in the morning service at Christ Memorial Church, here in Holland. We’ve previously played Christmas music there, so it was fun to go back and be part of a summer worship service! We also enjoyed the opportunity to attend a rehearsal and work with their handbell choir on bass and treble handbell techniques, as they prepare for the upcoming season.
At Christ Memorial Church, Holland
We also played duets in the morning service at our home church, Third Reformed, here in Holland. Larry had the chance to do something different too — and he enjoyed playing the cajón with the praise chorus!
Larry played the cajón at Third Reformed Church!
We’ve also been part of the Downtown Holland Street Performer Series; our third summer at this popular event.
Now that we’re wrapping up the summer, what’s next for us? We’re looking forward to giving a program of handbell duets at a senior community party in a few days’ time. After that, we’ll be preparing for a Sunday afternoon concert in Gregory, Michigan at the end of October.
The holiday season is always our favorite time of year. Is it too early to mention Christmas? We’re still taking bookings, so let us know if you need us!
