Author's posts
Nov 11
Veteran’s Day
(Larry writing…) It’s incredible to think about the sacrifices “The Greatest Generation” made on our behalf. In the desperate times of World War II, they saw the need and committed themselves to solving the problems created by the Axis powers. It was no different twenty-five years before, when a different – but still huge – …
Oct 23
Christmas (Rehearsal) is on the Horizon!
If you’re a musician, practice for anything starts weeks ahead. If it’s a big presentation like a church Christmas concert, then my experience has been that those rehearsals start about three months in advance. After all, we want to put our best foot forward on the evening when we have one of the largest congregations …
Sep 23
O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go
Now and then we’ll be in church, and ask ourselves, “Would the song we just sang work with just eight bells?” Then we check the hymnal, count the number of melody notes, and start wondering… until we get home and try writing an arrangement. That’s what happened with O Love That Wilt Not Let Me …
Sep 17
New Eight-Bell Music!
We have one more eight-handbell hymn arrangement to share before we start bringing our new Christmas selections out!
Sep 10
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Bass handbell ensemble music hasn’t been doing a lot of growth since Low Ding Zone decided to head off into the sunset. Come to think of it, LDZ might have been the only source of music of that sort for most of its existence. Anyway, one piece that LDZ might have played, but certainly never …
Sep 07
Friends with Videos
No… not *those* kinds of friends with videos… (nudge, nudge, 😉 😉 ) Actually, we’re referring to friends who like playing our music enough to post videos to the Internet. It’s exciting when this happens, because it means that someone else is ministering to their church family, or learning new skills, or just plain having …
Sep 04
Twelve-Bell Christmas Music is Here!
We’ve been holding onto five new twelve-bell Christmas arrangements, and the time has come to let you have a look at them. You’ll find them to be loads of fun, and there’s plenty of time to prepare them for the holidays! Here are our new pieces – we hope you enjoy playing them! Angels We …
Aug 28
Welcome to the New Season!
If you’re a church musician, August/September is about the time to start the new season (should I delay the first rehearsal until after Labor Day*? what can we have ready for the first Sunday we’re scheduled? And so on, and so forth). If you’re in a minor squeeze because that first service with music is …
Aug 23
Bay View: Winding Down from the High
We’re heading home from Michigan after five wonderful days at the Bay View Week of Handbells. For those of you who don’t know about it, BVWoH is a handbell performance event where about 100 musicians get together, rehearse for about twenty-five hours, and perform in an evening concert. It’s a huge commitment (among other things, …
Aug 16
Praise Him! Praise Him!
We’re in Harbor Springs, Michigan for a few days. It turns out that we’ve arrived on the hottest weekend of the whole year – it’s about 90º F. outside, so we’re thankful for air conditioning! We have a day to kick back before rehearsals start tomorrow, and plan to have a nice time, probably in …
