Handbell assignments for 8-bell duets can be tricky! People often ask us how we allocate our handbells between us. Does one of us play the four lowest bells in each piece, and the other the four highest? Does one of us play the “line” notes and one the “spaces”? Or do we choose at random, to make each piece different?
It’s really up to you!
When you play our music, you’re free to allocate your bells in whichever way suits you. We’ve found the way that works for us! Staying with our tried-and-tested method helps us to learn new pieces quickly and without too much confusion (usually).
As a general rule, we try to stick with the same bells for each piece, as far as possible. Many of our eight-bell pieces are in the range G5 – G6. For these pieces, Larry will play G5, A5, B5 and C6, and Carla will play D6, E6, F6 and G6. If there are any accidentals, of course we’ll switch those in as necessary.
What happens when an arrangement doesn’t contain the usual notes?
A more interesting challenge comes when a piece doesn’t go from G5 to G6 in a straightforward way. Maybe the lowest note is a D5, as in our arrangement of “Chloe’s Passion“. As the piece still only uses eight bells, that means we won’t be using one of the other “usual” notes. The trick is to find out which one of the “usual” notes is missing from the “bells used” chart, and assign the D5 in place of that missing note. In “Chloe’s Passion”, the Bb5 isn’t used – so Larry picks up the D5 in place of the Bb5. All the other bells are assigned in the usual way.
In another example – “The Butterfly“, the bells used chart has an A6 in it. A quick look tells us that there’s no F6 – so Carla takes the A6 in place of the F6 she’d normally play. We assign all the other bells in the usual way.
In our eight-bell arrangement of “Abide With Me“, the bells used are: A5, Bb5, C6, D6, Eb6, E6, F6 and G6. With both an E6 and an Eb6, it would make no sense for Carla to play D6 and above, leaving Larry with only three bells to play. In this piece, the Eb6 is in the key signature, so that makes E6 the “unexpected” bell. So, Larry gets the E6 in place of the G5, which isn’t used.
It’s not always straightforward… but do what works for you!
Allocating bells in this way can sometimes lead to interesting challenges caused by the difference in weights when holding one bell that’s noticeably heavier or lighter than the other three in our hands. However, we think the difficulty is outweighed by the benefit of holding as many familiar bells as possible in each piece. Assigning bells in this way cuts down the time spent learning each piece, because we don’t have to think as hard about which bells we’re holding.
