original composition Archives

Home at Last is an original composition with a history! It started life several decades ago as a song for SATB choir; part of Larry’s Living Water Composition Project. You can read more about that project on our Choraegus website, and find the choral scores for all the songs. Home at Last is the 54th composition in that project – and it works really well as a handbell piece too!

Here’s our demonstration video, with thanks to Kalamazoo Ringers for letting us borrow their B2 bass handbell. Keep watching, and you’ll see it!

More information about Home at Last

Home at Last is for 5-8 octaves of handbells, Level 4+. Probably the biggest challenges in the piece are the fast glissando-style runs, but they’re not actually as difficult as they look on paper (as long as you don’t over-think them). Advanced handbell choirs will enjoy this piece!

Sheet music for this original composition is available to purchase and download from Choraegus. You can either purchase an individual copy (useful for massed ringing events, or for preview), or purchase the full choir license. Purchase of the full choir license gives you our no-fuss permission to print up to 15 copies for your group.

Your purchase of the full-choir license also gives permission for you to perform, broadcast and live-stream this piece as part of a concert or worship service without the need for any additional license or fee, although we ask you to credit the composer (Larry Sue) and publisher (Choraegus) in any printed media such as concert programs, and online (in video descriptions). See our licensing agreement for full details. We appreciate your help in spreading the word about Choraegus handbell music. If you record a video of your group playing any of our pieces, we’d love to see it. You’re welcome to share it with us on our Facebook page too!

Choraegus handbell music is designed to come to you as a PDF file, which you’ll need to download. 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, we recommend 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. If someone has asked us a question even once, it will be there, along with the answer. Please contact us if you don’t find the information you need, and we’ll be happy to help.

Home at Last original handbell composition

Procession and Celebration is an original composition, commissioned by the Tate family in honor of Shosh Meyer, handbell director at St. Matthew Lutheran Church of Beaverton, Oregon. Shosh has been a friend of ours for some years, and played handbells at our wedding in 2012!

We decided it was time for another 5-octave recording project…. and this one was a fun challenge for us! As with all these “put together in iMovie” videos, we didn’t rehearse this piece beforehand. We didn’t feel entirely confident about playing the whole piece from start to finish, so we started with Procession. We recorded all the parts for that, and then played Celebration. You’ll see the join in the middle of the video. This piece is the most challenging one we’ve attempted with five octaves (so far), and it felt like a daunting task before we started. But we were pleased with how it turned out, and we were surprised how much we enjoyed playing it, particularly those fast runs in Celebration!

It’s always interesting how every square of video is a different color; we think of it as “50 Shades of Our Basement”. The whole piece was recorded in just a few hours, and it’s fun to see how the light changes in a relatively short space of time! Once again, Carla enjoyed the opportunity to play those bass bells. A highlight was when we got the lowest part recorded correctly on the first attempt!

Procession and Celebration - bass handbells

More information about the music

Procession and Celebration is for 5-7 octaves of handbells, with optional 2-octave handchimes. If you don’t have the chimes, you could play those notes with bells instead. It’s a Level 5 arrangement; fun for an advanced-level handbell choir, but also an interesting and achievable challenge for an aspiring-to-bronze choir. If you’d like to play this original composition, the sheet music is available to download from Choraegus.

Important information about Choraegus handbell music

When you buy Choraegus handbell music, please note that it will come to you as a PDF file. That means you’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. When you’ve downloaded your music, your one-time payment (for the choir version of the score) entitles you to print out up to 15 copies for your group. Individual copies are also available, for massed ringing events, or as preview copies. If you buy a preview copy, you’ll need to purchase the choir version for your ensemble to play it. Please read our licensing agreement for full information. If you’re new to buying music from Choraegus, we recommend our step-by-step guide!

Your purchase of this piece comes with our no-fuss permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and online video-sharing. You won’t need to apply for a performance licence when you’re ready to add it to your concert repertoire!

Any questions?

If you have any questions about buying or playing our music, please look at the Frequently-Asked Questions first. If you don’t find the information you seek, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help.