ENGELBERG is a popular hymn tune that’s been used as a setting for hymns such as We Know That Christ is Raised, All Praise to Thee, for Thou, O King Divine, and When in our Music, God is Glorified. That makes it a very versatile hymn for use throughout the church year.
We now have a Surprisingly Easy arrangement for just 8 bells!
More information about this 8-bell arrangement
Sheet music for ENGELBERG is available to purchase and download from Choraegus. Our Surprisingly Easy 8-bell music is a suitable for 2-4 ringers, and is particularly useful for quartets, and small groups in need of music that can be performed with a limited amount of rehearsal time.
Purchasing an 8-bell arrangement from Choraegus gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group. Please don’t pay for more copies than you need to! Purchase also gives you permission to use this piece in online and live-streamed worship services. See our licensing agreement for full details. Please remember to mention the title (Now Thank We All Our God) and arranger (Larry Sue) on video-sharing sites and social media.
Please note that Choraegus 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 with pictures, to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a stress-free way.
If you have any questions about our music, we recommend reading our Frequently-Asked Questions. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us, and we’ll be happy to help!
“Christ, whose glory fills the skies, Christ, the true and only Light, Sun of righteousness, arise, triumph o’er the shade of night; Day-spring from on high, be near; Day-star, in my heart appear.“
Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies is an 18th-century hymn by Charles Wesley. Here’s our new 8-bell arrangement of the RATISBON hymn tune. It’s one of our Surprisingly Easy arrangements!
More information about this 8-bell arrangement of Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies
Sheet music for Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies is available to purchase and download from Choraegus. Our Surprisingly Easy 8-bell music is a great choice for quartets, and small groups in need of music that can be performed with a limited amount of rehearsal time.
Purchasing an 8-bell arrangement from Choraegus gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group. Please don’t pay for more copies than you need to! Purchase also gives you permission to use this piece in online and live-streamed worship services. See our licensing agreement for full details. Please remember to mention the title (Now Thank We All Our God) and arranger (Larry Sue) on video-sharing sites and social media.
Please note that Choraegus 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 with pictures, to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a stress-free way.
If you have any questions about our music, we recommend reading our Frequently-Asked Questions. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us, and we’ll be happy to help!
“All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give; I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live. I surrender all, I surrender all; All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”.
Our new arrangement of the popular hymn I Surrender All uses just 8 handbells, and can be played by 2-4 ringers. The tune is SURRENDER, a 19th-century melody composed by Winfield S. Weeden.
More information about this 8-bell arrangement
Sheet music for I Surrender All is available to purchase and download from Choraegus.
Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group. Please don’t pay for more copies than you need to! Purchase also gives you permission to use this piece in online and live-streamed worship services. See our licensing agreement for full details, and please remember to mention the title (I Surrender All) and arranger of the piece (Larry Sue) on video-sharing sites and social media.
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. We designed this with pictures, to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a 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 be happy to help!
The Handbell Musicians of America Virtual Winter Workshop took place last weekend. This was an online event, where participants could sign up to attend online class sessions on Zoom, to learn more about a wide variety of handbell skills. There were classes available on subjects such as Creative Ringing Assignments, Starting a Middle School Handbell Choir, Bells and Voices, Program and Concert Design… and more! We enjoyed teaching two classes on two of our favorite handbell-related subjects; Adventures in 8-Bell Music, and The Low Ding Zone: Bass Handbell Skills. It had been a while since we’d taught on Zoom, but after a training session with HMA experts, and a bit of reading online, we felt as if we were getting the hang of it again.
For anyone who attended one or both of our classes, here’s some of the additional information that was covered in each class:
Adventures in 8-Bell Music: Doing More With Less
During this class, we talked about music written for just 8 handbells. We discussed the reasons for playing 8-bell music, assigning the bells for each piece, options for 4-in-hand ringing, and special considerations like when to damp the bells, how to find the melody, and how to match movements and balance the sound within a group.
We also talked about where to find 8-bell music, and we went through some useful websites to look at, one of which was Choraegus. Group participants asked some additional questions, and we’ve provided some info and links here:
Is 8-bell music suitable for groups of ringers who don’t play 4-in-hand? What Choraegus music do you recommend?
Yes, 8-bell music is suitable for ringers who don’t play 4-in-hand. As we discussed in the class, it helps to choose the right level of music for each group, depending on not only the skills of the ringers, but the amount of rehearsal time available. For handbell quartet groups, we recommend starting with some straightforward 8-bell music, such as the Surprisingly Easy arrangements available from Choraegus. If you browse the Choraegus website, you’ll see that a lot of the hymn arrangements in particular are available in two versions; the standard version and the surprisingly easy version. The easier version will usually contain fewer sixteenth-notes, less syncopation, and less tricky stuff generally. We refer to it as “all the music, without the twiddly bits”. The standard versions of Choraegus 8-bell music range from fairly straightforward to fiendishly challenging, as we discussed in our workshop session.
Are there collections of music available, instead of having to buy individual pieces?
More information about British-style 4-in-hand ringing
There’s an article on our website that describes the method Carla uses to play 4-in-hand. It has descriptions and pictures!
If you’re find the bells too heavy to play 4-in-hand…
there’s an article on the Choraegus website that gives some information about how you can often use smaller bells to play the music in a range that’s more comfortable for you.
We’d like to thank everyone who came to our workshop classes. If you decide to purchase any 8-bell music (or The Bass Ringer’s Notebook), remember to use the top secret coupon code that was given to you, to get 20% off your purchase, for a limited time only.
Thanks also to Handbell Musicians of America for giving us the opportunity to be part of the Virtual Winter Workshop, and for being so helpful in hosting the Zoom calls and helping us navigate the process! The classes from the weekend were recorded, and if you’re a member of Handbell Musicians of America, you can still sign up to watch all the recordings, until the end of February. Look on the Handbell Musicians of America website if you’d like to find out more!
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear is a popular 19th-century carol. We recently recorded a brand-new 8-bell arrangement, in the beautiful Crouse Memorial Chapel at the Bay View Association in northern Michigan.
More information about this 8-bell arrangement
Sheet music for It Came Upon the Midnight Clear is available to purchase and download from Choraegus. When you look at the page on the Choraegus website, you’ll see that there are two arrangements of this carol. This one is Version 2. Make sure you add the correct one to your shopping cart! This version is less challenging than our earlier version, and more straightforward for a trio or quartet group to play.
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 you permission to use this piece in online and live-streamed worship services. See our licensing agreement for full details, and please remember to mention the title and arranger of the piece on video-sharing sites and social media.
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. We designed this with pictures, to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a stress-free way.
Looking for more of a challenge?
If you’re looking for a more-challenging version of It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, try Version 1, available from the same page on the Choraegus website. This version has a lot more running notes, and is fun to play, but definitely takes a bit longer to get the hang of.
Other versions of this carol available from Choraegus
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 be happy to help!
“Good King Wenceslas looked out On the Feast of Stephen When the snow lay round about Deep and crisp and even Brightly shone the moon that night Though the frost was cruel When a poor man came in sight Gathering winter fuel”.
Our new arrangement of the Christmas carol Good King Wenceslas uses just 8 handbells, and can be played by 2-4 ringers. We recorded our demonstration video in the beautiful Crouse Memorial Chapel at the Bay View Association in northern Michigan.
More information about this 8-bell arrangement
Sheet music for Good King Wenceslas is available to purchase and download from Choraegus. When you look at the page on the Choraegus website, you’ll see that there are two arrangements of this carol. This one is Version 2. Make sure you add the correct one to your shopping cart! This version is less challenging than our earlier version, and more straightforward for a quartet to play.
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 you permission to use this piece in online and live-streamed worship services. See our licensing agreement for full details, and please remember to mention the title and arranger of the piece on video-sharing sites and social media.
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. We designed this with pictures, to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a 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 be happy to help!
After a busy Saturday morning of handbell workshops, we presented a handbell duet concert in Madison, WI. The sanctuary at Westminster Presbyterian Church is a beautiful performance space!
We played a whole concert with music using just eight bells at a time, although not the same bells for every piece. You’ll notice in the photo that we used three tables for the concert, even though we were only playing 8-bell music. We decided to do that because then we’d have a place to put our sheet music after we’d played it, and also because we used handchimes for one of the pieces. We don’t actually need a lot of space generally, but when we do have room to spread out, we do appreciate it!
Our concert program
Our concert was designed as a sacred concert. We added a couple of not-quite-sacred arrangements, but most of our repertoire consisted of hymns. Chopsticks was a fun addition; added fairly last-minute because we remembered how the audience had enjoyed it at our recent duet performance in Decatur, MI.
Here’s the program for the concert, listing the pieces we played:
It looks like a lot of pieces for one concert, but we don’t take as much time to reset our bells between pieces as a “standard size” handbell choir usually would, so we can fit more music into the program. We were grateful to Joe Chrisman from Westminster Presbyterian, who played piano for two of our pieces. We’d been rehearsing with an mp3 backing track played on a phone, so it was a real treat to have an actual pianist with us!
Here’s a video of Amazing Grace, with thanks to Larry’s brother Aj, who was at the concert:
Our 8-bell music
All of our 8-bell music is available for purchase and download from Choraegus. The helpful thing about Choraegus handbell music is that (with very few exceptions) it comes with fuss-free permission for performance, broadcasting and live-streaming. No one need worry about applying for separate licenses to perform or broadcast the pieces. We want to make it easy for other handbell ensembles to be able to perform our music too!
We’re thankful to everyone who came to our handbell concert in Madison. It was our first time performing there, and we appreciated the warm welcome we received. After the concert, on the Sunday morning, we played in two church services in Madison. We played prelude and offertory music at Covenant Presbyterian Church, then drove back to Westminster Presbyterian in time for offertory and postlude there. We’d had some doubts about being able to play in both services, but it turned out to be no problem at all, since the organizers Joe and Melissa had worked out the timing of everything so perfectly. The two churches were only a 6-minute drive apart, and we weren’t even out of breath when we arrived at Westminster. Playing in worship on the Sunday morning was a nice way to end our visit to Madison, before starting our long drive back to Michigan.
During our stay in Madison, we were able to visit the Wisconsin State Capitol building, which was opened in 1917. It’s a fascinating place to visit. When the trip was over, we drove back to Petoskey through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, stopping at various places along the way. If you’d like to see more photos from our trip, take a look at our Facebook page!
Thanks again to everyone who made this Handbell Weekend possible. We hope to visit Madison again someday!
“God rest ye merry, gentlemen Let nothing you dismay, Remember, Christ, our Savior Was born on Christmas Day, To save us all from Satan’s power When we were gone astray O tidings of comfort and joy, Comfort and joy, O tidings of comfort and joy!“
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen is our latest addition to the Choraegus handbell music catalog. This traditional English Christmas carol has the alternative title Tidings of Comfort and Joy. This lively arrangement will be fun for anyone who enjoys mixed meter! We recorded our demonstration video in our Victorian summer cottage at Bay View in northern Michigan.
More information about this arrangement
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemenis an accompanied 8-bell arrangement. The meter switches between 12/8 and 5/4 to create a lively feel and provide some extra challenge! We demonstrate it as a 4-in-hand duet, but you don’t need any special techniques to play it. This piece is suitable for 2-4 ringers, and sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. The piano score is included with the piece, and there is an mp3 backing track available to purchase separately. This can be useful if you don’t have a pianist available, or for rehearsing.
Buying handbell music from Choraegus
Your Choraegus music score will come to you in a download link, as a PDF file. You’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. You can order the music, download and print it on the same day, and be ready to rehearse!
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. You can find full details in our licensing agreement, and in our instructions about what you’re allowed to do with Choraegus music. 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. If you enjoy playing our music, please share our website link with other handbell musicians, and help us to get the word out!
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.
Any questions?
If you have any questions about our music, please start by reading our Frequently-Asked Questions. Just about every question anyone’s ever asked us is there, along with answers. Please contact us if you don’t find the information you need, and we’ll be happy to help.
It’s been a while since we offered some free handbell music – so here’s an arrangement of the Doxology (Old Hundredth). This tune was first published in the 16th century, and has been attributed to Louis Bourgeois. It’s used as the setting for Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow and All People That on Earth Do Dwell.
Our score package contains two transpositions. The first is in G5-G6, our usual eight-bell range. The second is D5-D6, which accommodates space-line assignments (for a quartet). This is the traditional singing key in most hymnals. There are also two ways of playing this piece, so you can pick the rhythm that feels more familiar to you. We demonstrate both in our video.
This arrangement is offered to you free of charge, as a thank you to everyone who’s supported Choraegus over the years. You’ll find it in the Freebies section of our music site. There’s also free music for Happy Birthday, Dona Nobis Pacem, Auld Lang Syne and several other pieces.
There’s no obligation to make any other purchase from Choraegus to get the free handbell music. Of course, we hope you’ll take a look at other titles we have to offer, but if you want to grab the free music and go, we don’t mind at all. It’s a good way to try our 8-bell music without having to spend any money! Our 8-bell music is designed to be played by 2-4 ringers. If you wanted to play this piece with more than 4 ringers, you could double the notes an octave lower, or add some handchimes.
Instructions for downloading the free handbell music
To get your free sheet music, add it to your cart on the Choraegus site, and click on the yellow “Check out with PayPal” button. Enter your details, and click “Confirm Order” (there’s no need to click on the PayPal button a second time). Then check your email inbox. If the download link doesn’t arrive, check your spam folder, and it might be there.
As always, we recommend that you read the licensing agreement before buying music from us (or claiming your free music), especially if this is your first time downloading music from Choraegus. You won’t receive anything in the mail, and will be responsible for printing your own music.
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!
While on the Sea is a traditional Ukrainian folk hymn. The original title is Страшно бушует житейское море, but the English title is the only one we can pronounce! We’re thankful to Stephan Bilak (1926-2004) for the English translation:
The hymn is hauntingly beautiful, often sung a cappella without accompaniment – as a prayer to God for protection from the stormy waters of life. There are videos on YouTube, where you can listen to it sung in the original language.
About our arrangement of While on the Sea
Our arrangement is for 8 handbells and piano. The sheet music is available to purchase and download from Choraegus, our music site. An mp3 accompaniment track is also available to purchase separately. This can be useful if you don’t have an available accompanist, or for rehearsing at home.
Choraegus is donating all proceeds from this arrangement to UNICEF.When you purchase the sheet music, you’ll be helping to support the relief effort for children and families in Ukraine. Please help us to spread the word, by sharing the video with your friends in the handbell world!
More information about Choraegus handbell music
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 an 8-bell arrangement allows you to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group (plus the accompaniment score). Purchase also gives permission for recording, broadcasting, live-streaming and sharing on video-sharing sites and social media. See our licensing agreement for full details. Please remember to mention the title (While on the Sea) and arranger of the piece (Larry Sue) on video-sharing sites and social media, and in any printed materials such as church service bulletins.
If you record your group playing any of our music, we’d love to see your videos!
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.
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 be happy to help!
