Tag Archives: handbell music

Tico Tico no Fubá – at the Bay View Week of Handbells

We’re excited that Larry’s arrangement of Tico Tico no Fubá is on the repertoire list for this year’s Bay View Week of Handbells! The Week of Handbells is an event that’s very special to us.

Tico Tico no Fubá - handbells

Information about the sheet music

If you need to purchase a copy of Tico Tico no Fubá for the event, you’ll find it on Choraegus. Please note that the music will be sent to you as a PDF file for you to download and print for yourself. You won’t receive anything in the mail. If you’re unsure about what’s involved in buying music from us, you may find our buying guides helpful, and the step-by-step guide.

If you have any questions, or you’re unable to order online for any reason, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help.

Videos of Tico Tico

Here are two videos. The first is a demonstration video, produced before this arrangement had ever been played on handbells. The second video is from a rehearsal at the 2015 Distinctly Bronze event, which took place in Portland, Oregon.

This year’s Bay View Week of Handbells repertoire looks as exciting as ever. Here’s the full list of pieces, with composers/arrangers and publishers’ information.

PROCESSIONAL by Arnold Sherman (organ and bells) (Agape 2195)

ALLEGRETTO arr. Michael Mazzatenta (From the Top Music 20428)

ALL CREATURES OF OUR GOD AND KING arr. Alex Guebert (Choristers Guild CGB962)

OBLIVION by Douglas Anderson (From the Top Music 20426)

SONATA IN BAROQUE STYLE by Michael Helman (Beckenhorst HB497)

GIVE ME JESUS arr. John Behnke (AGEHR AG46025)

TOCCATA ON ‘KING’S WESTON arr. Matthew Compton  (Agape 2767)

THE DRUNKEN SAILOR arr. Carl Wiltse (Stained Glass Music)

TICO TICO NO FUBÁ arr. Larry Sue (Choraegus)

AUTUMN LEAVES arr. Andrea Handley (Red River Music RRG5018)

NOLLIRAC CARILLON by Fred Gramann (Unpublished; available only from Heitz Handbells and Music)

GIVE US PEACE IN OUR TIME arr. Donald E. Allured (Composers Music Company HW0550)

CONCERTO FOR HANDBELLS AND ORGAN IN BAROQUE STYLE by Michael Helman (Beckenhorst HB424A)

THE LORD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU by Peter Lutkin (sung; not played)

We can’t wait to get started with rehearsing for this event. This year’s Week of Handbells will be another great one!

New Music for Handbells – Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty is the latest addition to our 8-bell repertoire. The hymn tune is based on Joachim Neander’s German chorale Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren, published in 1680.

This is another video from our rehearsal during the American Guild of Organists’ January Jubilee event that took place at Los Altos United Methodist Church earlier this month.

Would you like to play this arrangement?

If you’d like to play Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the music is available for purchase and download from Choraegus. The arrangement is suitable for 2-4 ringers.

Choraegus handbell music will come to you as a digital download, in PDF file format. This means you’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. Your payment entitles you to print up to 4 copies of the sheet music for your handbell group.

If you’re new to buying music from Choraegus, you might find our step-by-step guide helpful.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about buying or playing our music, you might find the Frequently-Asked Questions helpful. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us, and we’ll be happy to help.

Praise to the Lord the Almighty - handbells

New Music for Handbells – Wrong Foot Forward

Wrong Foot Forward is our latest handbell arrangement for 8 bells. If you’re looking for a fun challenge in 7/8, this could be the piece for you!

More information about the music

Wrong Foot Forward was written by Sarah Allen and Brian Finnegan of the Anglo-Irish band Flook. We arranged it with their kind permission. It’s a slip jig with a difference, and we’ve enjoyed learning it!

If you’d like to play this arrangement, the sheet music is available for purchase and download from Choraegus. We also have lots of other Irish jigs, hornpipes and traditional tunes. If you’re looking for music to dance to, you might find it on Choraegus!

Please note that Choraegus handbell music comes to you as a PDF file. This means you’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. If you haven’t bought music from us before, we recommend our step-by-step guide! We designed this in an attempt to make the purchase process straightforward and stress-free.

Any questions?

We’re always happy to answer any questions about buying or playing our music. We put together a list of Frequently-Asked Questions, so you might like to look there first. If you don’t find the answer you need, please let us know!

Wrong Foot Forward - handbells

New Music for Handbells – Come Christians, Join to Sing

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!

More Music for Twelve Bells!

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.

Farandole

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

Morning Has Broken

My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean

(with apologies to the rather surprised-looking lady who appears in the background at around 1:20!)

O Worship the King

Shenandoah

There is a Fountain

Any questions?

If you have any questions about buying or playing Choraegus handbell music, please contact us, and we’ll be happy to help!

Music for twelve bells - Choraegus
Choraegus – Bringing Music to the People

New Music for Handbells – our Second “Surprisingly Easy” Hymn Collection

Following on from our first Surprisingly Easy™ Eight-Bell Hymn Collection – here is a new collection! Once again, it’s all the music, but without the twiddly bits.

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!

Hymn Collection - 2nd surprisingly easy handbell music
Choraegus – Bringing Music to the People

New Music for Handbells – A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

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!

New Music for Handbells – Greensleeves (with Squirrel)

Greensleeves is one of our current favorite 8-bell arrangements. We performed it for the first time at the Siskiyou Summit Handbell Conference in May this year, and again at our concert with Philadelphia Bronze.

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!

Greensleeves for handbells

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!

Fear a’ Bhàta – A Long-Distance Love Song

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!

Fear a Bhata - a long-distance love story

New Music for Handbells – America, the Beautiful

It’s Memorial Day – a day to honor the men and women who gave their lives while serving in the US Armed Forces. Here’s our latest 8-bell piece – an arrangement of America, the Beautiful.

.

Would you like to play this arrangement?

If you’d like to play America, the Beautiful, 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 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!