While we were in Soledad for our #Pinnacles15 adventure, we played through some of our brand new, unpublished pieces. Come Christians, Join to Sing is one of these new pieces.
We didn’t want to annoy other hotel guests by playing handbells in our room. So we decided to find another practice location instead. We chose the pretty church of Our Lady of Solitude in Soledad. We played outside the church, as the sun went down and the light became poorer and poorer. Yes, it was pretty, and fairly quiet. No, it was not easy to see our music!
Here’s Come, Christians, which actually isn’t completely new to us. We’ve played it a couple of times recently in church services. For some unknown reason, we completely forgot to record or publish it until now. It’s a fun and lively arrangement of the Spanish hymn tune Madrid.
Would you like to play this arrangement?
If you’d like to play Come Christians, Join to Sing, the music is available for purchase and download from Choraegus.
If you haven’t bought music from Choraegus before, we recommend reading our step-by-step guide. Your purchase (pay once) entitles you to print up to 4 copies for your group. Please read our licensing agreement for full details.
Any questions?
If you have any questions, please get in touch, and we’ll be happy to help!
Unlike many of our handbell friends, we didn’t make it to this year’s National Seminar – Pinnacle – in Dallas, Texas. We read lots of news about this exciting event on Facebook. The whole thing was so awesome that it even had its own hashtag on social media – #Pinnacle15.
We’re not the kind of people to sit around and sulk because we were missing out on all the fun in Texas. Instead, we decided to have a handbell adventure of our own here in California. We packed our bells and equipment into the car, and away we went!
Here we are at our destination – PINNACLES!
Our very own handbell event
We checked in at a hotel in the nearby town of Soledad, and our handbell event – #Pinnacles15 – began.
Here’s a picture of the church where we held our Friday evening duet session. We played through some new and unpublished music outside the church of Our Lady of Solitude.
And here’s our opening night dinner. Hey, put your phone away, Larry!
Here’s Larry wearing our event t-shirt:
Here are some of our bells in the hotel room:
Here’s Carla wearing her “Hug Larry if you love Tico Tico” shirt:
Larry held a handbell polishing session:
Wait. Handbell polishing? THAT’S not how you do it, Larry!
Here’s Larry wearing his “Kiss me if you love Tico Tico” shirt. These shirts were worn by handbell musicians from Area 12 at Distinctly Bronze West in February 2015.
Here’s Carla, showing her skills at multi-tasking as she works on music for the Bay View Week of Handbells while drinking coffee!
We enjoyed the opportunity to do some sightseeing in the area too. Here’s a picture of the Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, where we played some of our duets inside and outside the chapel on Saturday morning:
And here we are at the Mission San Juan Bautista, which we visited on Saturday afternoon:
Our handbell event was over far too quickly, because we had to be home on Sunday morning, to play duets in a church service in San Jose. But we had a fun couple of days – and you can see more photos from our trip on our Facebook page!
We’ve had lots of fun with our eight-bell music. Sometimes it’s also fun to branch out and expand a little. Here’s some new music for twelve bells!
Of course, we can only play four bells each at one time. It’s a problem when we suddenly have 12-bell music, and don’t have a hope of playing it on our own! That’s when we turn to J.C for help. J.C. doesn’t do this stuff on a regular basis, but he has plenty of musical talent, and very little fear of scary handbell music situations. After all, he used to play in Low Ding Zone!
On this occasion we didn’t have a lot of time to spend together. We decided to read through the music, and record as many pieces as we could in as short a time as possible.
Here are the resulting videos from our recent sight-reading sessions. They’re all from either the first or second attempt at playing them. For that reason, the following demonstrations are far from polished. However, they should give you an idea of how the new pieces could sound with a bit more rehearsal!
Although we’re playing these pieces as a four-in-hand trio, they could also be played with up to 6 people, with just 2 bells each. Click on the titles if you’d like to find out more about each piece.
What do you do when it’s the Fourth of July, and you’ve finished eating party food and having fun with family and friends? The answer is… play handbell duets, of course!
An impromptu handbell duet performance
We were in Hayward, California for a family gathering, and we decided we needed to burn off some of the calories we’d consumed at lunch time. We were driving in the direction of home, and noticed the Chapel of the Chimes. Suddenly looked like a great location for a Concert With No Audience!
The Chapel of the Chimes is a 61-acre cemetery, crematorium and funeral home complex. It didn’t appear that we’d be disturbing anyone with our music, so we set up our table and bells. We played duets for around forty minutes! It was a great opportunity to play through some of the music for our visit to Los Altos Lutheran Church the following day. We also brought out some of the older pieces we hadn’t played for a very long time!
We had the usual interesting challenges that go with outdoor performances – a strong breeze, traffic noise, and even some festive firecrackers! The location and the sunshine also made it a very stripy-looking performance, as you can see from the video!
The following pieces are on the video:
America, the Beautiful
Come, Christians, Join to Sing
Drink to Me Only
Beautiful Dreamer
A Mighty Fortress
Moreton Bay
Great is Thy Faithfulness
Danny Boy
Botany Bay
Earth and All Stars
I Need Thee Every Hour
The King of Love My Shepherd Is
Allegro
We hope you enjoyed our handbell duets at the Chapel of the Chimes. All the pieces we played are available (or coming soon!) from Choraegus. If you’d like to book us for a performance with an audience, please let us know!
We’re counting down to the Bay View Week of Handbells!
So, what is the Bay View Week of Handbells, and why is it something special for us? Why are we counting down the days until we get there? We’ll try to explain some of the magic here.
The Bay View Week of Handbells takes place every year in Bay View, Michigan. Just over a hundred handbell musicians gather together for several days of intense rehearsals, after which we perform a public concert. Donald Allured founded the Week of Handbells in 1978, and Carl Wiltse is the current director of the event. It’s for people who enjoy the challenge of spending time learning the music, and performing to a professional standard. And yes, even though the music is challenging and the rehearsals are intense, we still manage to have fun!
The Week of Handbells is part of our story
For us, the Week of Handbells is particularly special because of the role it played in our long-distance relationship story. Our story started several years ago when we met and became friends online. By the end of 2009 we were spending several hours every day “talking” on Facebook Chat. Our friendship turned into a relationship, and we began to make plans to meet in person for the first time. Our first “real life” meeting took place in August 2010, when Carla travelled from London to Chicago O’Hare. From there, we flew together to Traverse City, where we rented a car and drove to Bay View.
Here is a photo of us before the concert at our very first Bay View Week of Handbells.
Our second Week of Handbells
After our first in-person meeting in 2010, we had to wait a whole year before we could see each other again. During our months apart, we decided for certain that we wanted to spend our future together. We travelled back to Michigan in August 2011 for our second Week of Handbells. That was a busy week for us! Before the start of the event, we made a special journey to Miner’s North in Traverse City to pick up some rings. Then we drove to the Old Mission Point Lighthouse, where Larry proposed, and Carla said yes!
We announced our engagement to our friends at the Week of Handbells, at the evening reception after the first day of rehearsals. Here’s one of our favourite photos of us – taken by Kim Finison at Bay View in 2011.
August 2011 was also the time when our set of Malmark handbells made it across the ocean in Carla’s luggage. Larry transferred them to his suitcase for the journey to California.
After our week in Michigan in 2011, we went back to our separate homes, and soon after that we started the US fiancée visa process to bring Carla from England to California. Carla’s K-1 visa was approved at the end of May 2012, and the race was on to get everything organised for the big move. We managed to time it to coincide with the Bay View Week of Handbells in August!
Closing the distance!
August arrived, and Larry flew to England to collect Carla and her son, and the three of us travelled together to Chicago O’Hare. There, our onward flight was cancelled and we were forced to spend an uncomfortable night camping in the airport. Strangely enough, the makeshift camp was at Gate K1. That’s the same number as the visa Carla had applied for! Bay View Week of Handbells 2012 was a very special one for us, because, for the first time, we didn’t have to say goodbye to each other at the end of the event. It was an amazing feeling to be able to pack up our things and travel home to California together, without having to do that horrible airport goodbye stuff that’s so painful for long-distance couples.
Since then, we’ve been to the Week of Handbells twice more. To say we’re looking forward to the next one would be an understatement. Well, we’re counting down the days on our website, right? So yes, we’re excited!
Even without all the memories that make the Week of Handbells so special to us personally, it’s still an incredibly wonderful handbell event. We always tell people that if we could only go to one handbell event in a year, this would be the one we’d choose. After all, where else can you play handbells in an Auditorium that’s named after a Hall?
And where else can you walk around during your lunch break and see houses like this one?
At the Bay View Week of Handbells, we have Tiara Tuesday!
We have the opportunity to play some exciting and challenging music, which each person works hard to prepare during the weeks and months before the event. That gives us four days to put together the finishing touches as a group, in time to give a superb concert on the Thursday evening.
Apart from the beautiful location, the exciting music and all the happy memories the Week of Handbells holds for us, we know that it’s the people there who make this event so special. Our annual trip to Bay View feels like a journey home; and the friends we’ve made there feel like family to us. For just a few days in August, more than a hundred people are brought together by the music of handbells. We wouldn’t miss it for the world.
If you’re looking for some new handbell pieces to enhance your worship service, but you don’t want them to take too long to learn, this collection could be the answer. If you’re part of a duet, trio or quartet, or your handbell choir is enthusiastic but small in number, these hymns could be what you’re looking for!
The hymns included in this second collection are:
All Creatures of Our God and King
Just As I Am
All the Way My Savior Leads Me
It is Well with My Soul
Amazing Grace
Jesus Walked this Lonesome Valley
Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken
Praise Him! Praise Him!
Would you like to play these arrangements?
If you’d like to purchase and download this hymn collection for your group to play, it’s available from Choraegus. Each of the hymns is also available separately.
Please note that Choraegus handbell music is designed to be downloaded as PDF files. You’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything by mail. Please read our licensing agreement for full details. If you’re new to buying music from Choraegus, we also recommend our step-by-step guide. We designed this to make the purchase process stress-free for you!
Any questions?
If you have any questions about buying or playing our music, you might like to check our Frequently-Asked Questions. If you don’t find the information you need, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help!
The weekend is here, and it’s time for some more new handbell music! Here’s our 8-bell arrangement of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God; one of the best loved hymns of the Lutheran and Protestant traditions. Martin Luther wrote the melody and words around 1529.
If you’d like to play A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, the music is available for purchase and download from our music site.
This arrangement has no bell-sharing, no picking-up of accidentals during the piece, and no need for tables. It’s suitable for 2-4 ringers.
Information about buying Choraegus handbell music
Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group – so you only need to pay once. Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and video-sharing online. See our licensing agreement for full details. Please remember to mention the title and arranger of the piece on video-sharing sites, social media and any printed materials.
Please also note that our music is designed as downloadable PDFs. 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. Please contact us if you don’t find the answers you need, and we’ll do what we can to help!
Greensleeves is a traditional English folk song. The melody is frequently heard in the USA as the popular Christmas carol What Child Is This. If you’d like to play this piece, the music is available for purchase and download from our music site.
This video was recorded during one of our rehearsals in February – and what makes this video special for us is the appearance (just after the first minute) of a squirrel in the background.
That squirrel was a sweet little distraction throughout our rehearsal that day, and made several appearances to pose for photos!
How to purchase the sheet music
If you’d like to play Greensleeves, the sheet music is 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 – so you only need to pay once. Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and video-sharing online. See our licensing agreement for full details. Please remember to mention the title and arranger of the piece on video-sharing sites, social media and any printed materials.
Please also note that our music is designed as downloadable PDFs. 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. Please contact us if you don’t find the answers you need, and we’ll do what we can to help!
We were recently in Philadelphia to perform our concert with Philadelphia Bronze – our first-ever visit to Philadelphia! This seemed like an ideal time for a tour of the Malmark handbell factory. It’s the place where our handbells were made!
The Malmark Bellcraftsmen factory is located in Plumsteadville, PA. We were strangers to the area, but still managed to get on the right road and find the place we were looking for. This big sign helped a lot:
Our tour started in a room full of history. We were able to see the “1st production” Malmark handbell, made in December 1974, and a selection of various handbells made many years ago and in other countries. Our tour guide, Martha, talked about the process of making the bells, starting from the design itself, where the sound and overtones are determined by the shape, diameter and wall thickness of the bell. Handbells are made of bronze; 80% copper and 20% tin. You can read about the casting process at www.malmark.com.
The smallest and largest handbells ever made!
Here’s a picture of the largest and smallest bells ever made by Malmark; the G0 and the C9.
Larry’s a bass bell specialist, and he was pleased to be allowed to try playing the G0 bell – with great care! People have observed that it sounds more like a gong than a bell.
We visited the machine shop next, and admired the obvious skill and dedication needed to operate the lathe and tune the bells in the next part of the tour. It’s precision work, and a fascinating process to watch. We have to admit that all those golden, gleaming turnings – the shavings from the bells, which sparkled all over the machinery – made us think of Christmas!
The polishing department was an exciting place! It was impressive to see the difference between the bell at the start of the process and after machine-polishing.
So many shiny bells!
We discovered that walking into a huge room full of bells can be an awe-inspiring experience. Was Carla the first person to CRY when she saw this? We don’t know, but ohhh… so many bells! So much bronze! So much SHINY!
Skilled and dedicated people
Something that really impressed us at the Malmark factory was the obvious skill and dedication of the people working there. It’s great to meet people who are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the work they’re doing. They are all aware of the important part they play in the creation of the finished product. If we lived near Plumsteadville, we’d definitely want to work there!
We found out that bells can be “rejected” at any stage of the production process. This can even happen in the very final stages, when they’ve already gone through several stages of tuning, been polished and given their handles and clappers. Some of the rejected bells are returned to the foundry to be melted down again, while others become beautiful gifts.
Others are not so fortunate and end up gathering dust, as makeshift doorstops.
Bass handbells!
Next… those great big bass bells. Larry calls them “aluminum”, and Carla tries hard not to call them “aluminium” (there’s a subtle US/UK difference there!) . Whatever you call them, they’re large, and they start off very heavy before some of the weight has been tuned out of them. For the last few years, Larry has played these aluminum bells at the Bay View Week of Handbells, which takes place in Michigan every August. That’s where his t-shirt came from!
Malmark also manufactures Choirchime® instruments, which also go through a tuning process. It was unusual for us to see so many handchimes in one place!
We finished our tour of the Malmark factory in the Demonstration Ringing Room, where we rehearsed a few pieces for the following evening’s concert with Philadelphia Bronze.
If you’re ever in Pennsylvania, we’d recommend taking a tour of the Malmark factory. There’s so much to see there, and you’ll have the opportunity to meet a group of people who are really passionate about the instruments they create. Even if you don’t play handbells, it’s a fascinating place to visit. We took lots more photos, so please click on this link to see the complete set!
And no, Malmark didn’t pay us to write this!
Someone asked us if Malmark paid us to write this review of their factory tour – and the answer is no. We really did enjoy our time there!
Fear a’ Bhàta (also known as The Boatman) is a beautiful Scottish-Gaelic melody. We first saw in an old songbook published in 1927. Directed to be sung “with longing”, it tells the story of a young girl who is in love with a fisherman who has sailed away… and every night she watches the ocean, waiting for his boat to return.
“How often haunting the highest hilltop I scan the ocean, thy sails to see Will’t come tonight, love, will’t come tomorrow Will’t ever come, love, to comfort me?”
A long-distance love story
The words of the song tell how her friends think she’s wrong to wait for this man, and that he’s lied to her and is unlikely to return. She wonders if he’s remembered the promises he made before he left, and sings about the silken gown and gold ring that she’s never likely to own.
We assumed until recently that the story was a heartbreaking work of fiction. But it turns out that the song was written in the late 19th century by Sìne NicFhionnlaigh (Jean Finlayson) about her own life and the struggles she endured while her fiancé was away at sea. Best of all, shortly after the song was written they got married. It’s good to know that the story ended happily, after all.
Here’s a video of our handbell arrangement of this piece, recorded at our concert with Philadelphia Bronze in King of Prussia, PA.
If you’d like to play Fear a’ Bhàta, you can purchase and download the music from Choraegus.
Information about buying handbell music from Choraegus
Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group – so you only need to pay once. Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and video-sharing online. See our licensing agreement for full details. Please remember to mention the title and arranger of the piece on video-sharing sites, social media and any printed materials such as concert programs.
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.
If you haven’t purchased music online from Choraegus before, you might like to look at our step-by-step guide. We designed this guide 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. Please contact us if you don’t find the answers you need, and we’ll do what we can to help!
