Last weekend, we saw the opportunity for another Concert with No Audience in Walnut Grove, California. We set up by the side doors of the Presbyterian church there, and played for an hour or so. There was no audience except the passing traffic, the birds, and a couple of passers-by.
We enjoy giving these “concerts” from time to time. In reality, a concert with no audience is probably not much more than another rehearsal. What makes it different is the possibility that an audience might arrive without warning. When we rehearse, we go back and practise passages of the music that need improvement. When we give a concert, whether to an audience or not, we’re selecting pieces that are performance-ready, and playing them to the best of our ability.
Here’s a video with excerpts from some of the pieces we played, all of which are currently available (or soon to be available) from Choraegus.
Would you like to host a concert – with an audience?
If you’d like to book us to perform a concert at your church, or a performance for your event, please contact us. We’ll bring the music, and you can provide the audience!
In the Garden was written in 1912 by C. Austin Miles. We received a request for an eight-bell arrangement of this much-loved hymn – so here it is!
How to purchase the sheet music
If you’d like to play In the Garden, 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 be happy to help!
Taking a vacation without handbells is clearly a challenge! We spent a lovely long weekend visiting Yosemite National Park. The plan was to enjoy a few days in beautiful surroundings, without the pressure of rehearsals or concerts. That’s quite unusual for us, because we usually only stay away from home when we’re attending a handbell event.
But did we leave our handbells at home?
Well, no. We still took our handbells with us. After all, there was always the possibility we might decide to rehearse in the hotel! Or we might be driving past a wedding and be called upon to play duets. We might even get a sudden phone call asking us to play at a church service. Oh, who are we kidding? It just didn’t seem right to go away for a long weekend without taking the bells with us. Perhaps it is an addiction after all.
We left the bells in the hotel for three whole days without taking them out of the case. But on Sunday morning, we could ignore them no longer, and we decided to find somewhere to rehearse. Just moments away from our hotel in Oakhurst was the Little Church on the Hill– the perfect location!
Sadly, it turned out not to be such a perfect location, because we were competing with lots of traffic noise – but still, we spent an hour or so playing through some of the music we haven’t played for a while, and we had a great time. Here are some excerpts of the pieces we played:
The idea of a vacation without handbells was nice while it lasted, but turned out to be an impossible goal for us. We hope to be able to play at the Little Church again someday – maybe on our next trip to Yosemite!
Over the past couple of years, we’ve had a lot of fun writing and performing our eight-bell music. We’ve recently published some fun and exciting music for twelve bells – a whole new adventure for us!
Getting some help with playing the new music
We wanted to make demonstration videos of the new 12-bell pieces. Of course, the problem with 12-bell music is that we can’t play it by ourselves. So we thought for a while, and decided to ask someone to help us:
“Hi, J.C. Are you free on Saturday? Want to come and help us with some bell stuff?”
“Okay. Uh… what kind of bell stuff?”
“Well, we need to try and record as many of the new twelve-bell pieces as we can manage… in not-very-much time.”
J.C. is more of a bass bell expert, and he doesn’t get a lot of opportunity to do 4-in-hand treble ringing, so we weren’t sure if he’d be too enthusiastic about our suggestion. But he’s a skilled musician, and he was up for the challenge. We met at the rehearsal venue, and the three of us spent an hour or so playing through our new twelve-bell music, to see how it worked “in real life”. We recorded our rehearsal, in the hope that we’d be able to get some demonstration videos for the website.
The videos we made are below. It should be noted that these are all first, second or third takes, so the pieces are not necessarily played 100% accurately. There are occasional wrong notes, and some inaccurate rhythms and occasional slip-ups of a random nature! But for a first read-through, we were quite pleased with how it all went. We felt that we’d only need a few more practice sessions to add a bit more polish to each performance.
Here are the rehearsal videos. Click on the titles if you’d like to buy the music!
Our thanks go to J.C. for helping us with this at short notice. J.C. – you’re a star, and we enjoyed working with you. We hope we can do it again soon!
The SECC Handbell Festival was a great success. More than a hundred skilled young handbell musicians attended, and worked very hard to prepare for the concert. Larry had the privilege of being their clinician for the event.
We were both so impressed by the skill and dedication of the young musicians at this event. The choirs arrived well-prepared, and stayed focused throughout the rehearsals. Their individual performances were of a very high standard, and they performed the massed ringing pieces very well. If you’d like to see some of the highlights from the SECC Handbell Festival, here’s a video with excerpts from the rehearsals and the evening concert. The concert featured music by Arnold Sherman, Kevin McChesney, William Gross, Jason Krug, Linda McKechnie, Tim Waugh, Michael Glasgow, Catherine McMichael, Matthew Compton and our very own Larry Sue. A snippet from our performance of our eight-bell duet “Great is Thy Faithfulness” appears about 18 minutes into the video.
We also very much enjoyed this performance of Matthew Compton’s arrangement of “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?”, by Bellissimo, a group from Redlands Advent Academy. Here’s a video from the event:
If you’d like to see more photos from this event, you can find them on our Facebook page!
34th Annual SECC Handbell Festival, Riverside, CA – 2015
We were so excited to hear Larry’s arrangement of the Brazilian piece Tico Tico no Fubá being performed for the first time at the Distinctly Bronze West concert last Sunday. Here’s a video from one of Sunday’s rehearsal sessions in Portland.
More information about this arrangement
Tico Tico no Fubá is a truly exciting Brazilian piece written by Zequinha de Abreu. Larry’s arranged it for 5-7 octaves of handbells, with 3 octaves of handchimes. It’s Level 5+, and it’s a fun challenge for advanced handbell choirs. You’ll dance as you ring!
Alex Guebert has also created some great percussion parts for this piece – so you have the option to add guiro, maracas, cabasa, tamborim, and claves. Sheet music for the handbell and percussion parts is available for purchase and download from Choraegus. Please read our licensing agreement for full information.
If you haven’t purchased music from Choraegus before, you might like to read our step-by-step guide. We designed this guide to help you navigate the process in a stress-free way!
Any questions?
If you have any questions about buying or playing Choraegus handbell music, please read our Frequently-Asked Questions, in case the answer is there. If you don’t find the information you need, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help.
Our trip to Portland will be happening in just a few days’ time. We’ll be taking part in Distinctly Bronze West, a fun and challenging event where over a hundred experienced handbell musicians will gather together to rehearse and perform some exciting music, under the direction of Dr. Bill Payn.
This year’s repertoire is as follows:
Carillon on a Ukrainian Bell Carol – Gerald Near, transcr. Sondra Tucker
Consecration – William Payn
Down the River (Riding the Rogue) – Jason Krug
Festive Dance – Georges Bizet, transcr. Kevin McChesney
Gravitas – Michael J. Glasgow
Gwerzy – D. Armstrong/C. O’Snodaigh, arr. Clint Hagen
Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen, arr. Joel Raney
Horizons – William Payn
Light of Peace – Veronica Bigham and Derek Hakes
Passacaglia – G.F. Handel, transcr. William Griffin Beckenhorst
One of the challenges about Distinctly Bronze, and other high-level handbell events, is that it’s essential to know the music very well before you go there. It’s not the kind of handbell event where you can get there, sight-read the music, and hope for the best. You have to be familiar with each piece – and “learning the notes” is just the first part of that. If you think about it, playing handbells in a large group is like being just part of one big instrument; imagine a piano where you have just a handful of notes that are your responsibility (and they’re not necessarily all notes that are next to each other on the keyboard), and other people have control of the other notes around you.
The interesting challenge is to be able to play your notes at the right time, fitting them between other people’s notes, and playing them with the right touch to match what’s happening around you. The goal is to play your bells in such a way that the listener hears the music as a whole, and isn’t distracted by the fact that different bells are being played in different ways by more than a hundred different people. Events like these are not about individuals; they’re about a group of people making music together – and that takes teamwork and practice.
Using graph theory to position bass handbells
So we’ve been preparing for this since Christmas; annotating the scores to make sure we don’t miss a tempo change, or forget to pick up a bell or handchime in time to play it; marking difficult passages to remind us not to miss those accidentals or tricky rhythms. Yes, all those scribbles really do mean something important! And even the scribbles in the picture below mean something – at least, they do to Larry, who uses his knowledge of graph theory to help work out the best way to position the bass bells for each piece.
We’ve also been playing the music on actual bells, over and over – because even when you feel that you’ve stared at the notes on the paper until your eyes are burning, there’s no substitute for picking up some bells (preferably the right ones) and making sure all your ideas are actually possible – or will become possible with a lot more practice!
The upcoming performance of Larry’s arrangement of Tico Tico will be the first one ever! The piece has been the subject of much discussion among DB West participants, as we all get to grips with sharing bells with neighbours, changing bells at high speed, and working out the best ways to deal with fast chromatic passages. It’s going to be exciting to see how this piece sounds in performance next Sunday!
We’re looking forward to this year’s Distinctly Bronze West. Full details of the concert are below. If you’re in the Portland area on Sunday, March 1st, we’d love to see you there!
Introducing our first Surprisingly Easy™ Eight-Bell Hymn Collection! 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, or your handbell choir is enthusiastic but small in number, these hymns could be what you’re looking for!
What’s included in this first collection?
A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
Fairest Lord Jesus
Hyfrydol (also frequently sung as Alleluia! Sing to Jesus)
I Need Thee Every Hour
Take the Name of Jesus With You
Take My Life and Let It Be (Messiah tune)
This is My Father’s World
To God Be the Glory
Each of these hymns is also available separately. If you’d like to purchase and download this hymn collection for your group to play, it’s available from our music site.
More information about buying music from Choraegus
Purchasing this collection 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, 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 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!
Here’s our latest eight-bell piece – the folk hymn Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley. This sensitive and easy-to-learn arrangement is particularly suitable for Lent and Holy Week, but could be used throughout the year. Playable as a duet, trio or quartet, we hope you’ll add it to your repertoire!
Where to get the music, and more information about Choraegus
The sheet music for Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley is available for purchase and download 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, 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 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 be happy to help!
Here’s our latest eight-bell piece. It’s a hymn called The Love of God, which has become one of our favorites in recent months. We started learning it while we were raising money for the Salvation Army at the Red Kettle in our local supermarket before Christmas. It was fairly easy to hide it among the Christmas and holiday music. There was a back-up plan that if anyone asked us what it was called, we’d tell them it’s also known as On Christmas Morn.
We also played The Love of God during a church service in Redding a couple of weekends ago. We think this piece could work nicely for a trio or quartet as well.
The Love of God is available for purchase and download from our music site.
More information about Choraegus handbell music
Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell ensemble – 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 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 to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a (we hope!) stress-free way.
Any questions for us?
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’re looking for, and we’ll do what we can to help!
