Jun 06

Friskin’ the Whiskers

Jazz great Cab Calloway had an expression “friskin’ the whiskers”. It’s a reference to the idea of “just gettin’ started”, and is draws a picture of a highly-skilled performer who starts on his set by smoothing his mustache. “Okay, now I’m ready to play.”
Friskin’ the Whiskers, a new Level 5 work for five to seven octaves of handbells was commissioned by RiverBells of Sacramento, California with the following requirements:

  • Original (that is, not an arrangement).
  • Level 3+ or higher.
  • Three to fifteen minutes in length (it’s just about exactly 4:00).
  • Swing style.

Here’s to hoping that you’ll find this one fun to play!

Purchasing the handbell choir version of this arrangement grants permission to print and maintain up to fifteen copies for your handbell ensemble; purchasing the single copy version grants permission to print and maintain one copy. Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and video-sharing online. See our licensing agreement for full details, and 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.

Jun 04

New music for handbell choirs!

I’ve embarked on a project to create new music for the more normal handbell choir (don’t worry, I’ll keep writing music for eight and twelve bells!). The big difference is that this new music will be AGEHR Level 2-3+ so that it’s withing the grasp of the vast majority of bell choirs. Most of it, for now, will be church music – notably, hymns – because most ringers get their playing time with churches, and because many community groups also play church music for their audiences.

So, without further ado, the first piece of what I hope will be a very, very large amplification of the existing handbell repertoire is O Worship the King (hymn tune LYONS).

Purchasing the handbell choir version of this arrangement grants permission to print and maintain up to fifteen copies for your handbell ensemble; purchasing the single copy version grants permission to print and maintain one copy. Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and video-sharing online. See our licensing agreement for full details, and 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.

Jun 01

A Little Bird Sang to Me…

We’re getting more music out so that you can play it. Klein vogelijn is a Dutch song about a little bird singing in a tree, sharing its God-given gift of music with the world around it. We hope you’ll enjoy playing it!

May 09

Botany Bay

Sorry, no… we’re not taking a trip to Australia at the moment (we’d love to, one day). But we do have some music that’s played in Australia. Today’s new release is Botany Bay, a song that refers to the penal colony Down Under by that name (you might also remember something from one of the Star Trek movies…).

The precise origins of the song are a bit unclear, but it’s known that it became popular in nineteenth-century London as one of the selections in the musicals of that time.

May 02

Morning Song

We had the privilege of playing the opening concert at an event sponsored by  Handbell Musicians of America’s Area 5 on Mackinac Island in April 2018. It was an opportunity for us to get to know and to share with our fellow handbell musicians from the northern Midwest

Our arrangement of MORNING SONG was one of the pieces we premiered that evening. We hope you’ll enjoy playing it!

Apr 17

Need to play for someone’s birthday?

We recorded our eight-bell arrangement of Happy Birthday a few years ago, but realized that we hadn’t made it available for others to play. Since it’s only eight bars long and takes less than a minute to play, we’ve decided to make it free to anyone who would like to get it.

Have fun!

Apr 04

Calmer Sailing Ahead

If you haven’t noticed (perhaps you’ve been on a nice, long Caribbean cruise?), we’ve been going through a little bit of craziness over the past few weeks. Our website was in limbo, the bottom line being that no one could see it, or browse, or shop, or buy music.

Anyway, the Choraegus site is up and running again, and we’ll be bringing out more music for your ringing/singing/playing enjoyment soon!

But first, we’re going to celebrate with a bit of Netflix and watching the Lake Michigan snow that’s enhancing our garden… 🙂

Mar 31

Hooray – Rehosting is completed!

Some of you have gone through the potentially harrowing experience of rehosting a website. There are a number of steps that sometimes mean your site goes down for a while; some of those steps can lead to a bit of angst as you jump through the requisite hoops.

I’m happy to report that the Choraegus site is now fully operational! You might recall that the last step was getting our SSL certificate working. This is indicated by being able to access our site using a web-secure link such as https://www.choraegus.com. Once you can see the “https://” at the beginning of your browser’s URL (sometimes indicated by a little padlock), you know that your visit to our site is safe and secure. Shop with confidence!

Thank you for bearing with us through this slightly bumpy bit of our adventure. On to even greater things!

Mar 29

Rehosting…

We’ve been in the process of rehosting our site for the last couple of weeks. We apologize for our site being unavailable during that time.

As of today (March 29, 2018) we’re getting close but aren’t quite there. Pretty much everything works, except that we still have to reactivate our e-store. That’s a significant problem, and we’re looking into what needs to be done. Meanwhile, you can now browse our pages, and see what will be once again available once we make those last few fixes.

If you need to get some music from us immediately, do contact us, and we’ll figure out how to keep you ringing and having fun!

Feb 20

Happy https:// to you!

We’d like to apologize to those of you who’ve noted that our site’s appeared to be “insecure” over the past couple of days. There was a little bit of difficulty with our SSL certificates which has now been fixed. Browsing the Choraegus site is now perfectly safe, and we hope you’ll keep on visiting to discover the music we have for you to play.

So… it’s a bit more than halfway through our second Michigan winter. The snowfall in Holland has been rather closer to normal than last year’s teensy total of “only” 56 inches. When we haven’t been shoveling, we’ve had lots of opportunity to write and rehearse new music. We’ve already put out a couple of new twelve-bell pieces in the last month, and there’s a lot more in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future!