Jun 20

In what order should I hold my bells?

The question of how to configure four-in-hand bells (usually for eight-bell duets or twelve-bell trios) comes up every now and then. The mental effort required to manage four notes simultaneously dictates a need to make as much of that thinking as automatic as possible.

One school of thought goes with the idea of holding the bells in keyboard order, so “C/D E\F”, where the forward slash denotes a left-hand pair with the C as “primary” and the D as “secondary” (see my earlier post about what “primary” and “secondary” mean). The backward slash specifies a right-hand pair. This incorporates they layout of the piano that we understand, so it’s fairly intuitive.

The “parallel thirds” approach, C/E D\F, takes advantage of the harmonic structure of the music we hear most often in Western society where our chords come from triads. For instance, C-E-G forms a triad defined as a C major chord. It turns out that our harmony contains thirds more often than seconds (combinations of adjacent piano keys), which means “parallel thirds” makes them more manageable.

A physical reason leads to the “heavy primaries” approach. Handbells vary in size and therefore weight, so making the heavier bell of a pair is more manageable (yes, both in American and British four-in-hand). Doing this with the four bells we’re setting up with C/E F\D.

These possibilities constitute just three of the possible twenty-four permutations. Rest assured that no one can prevent you from using any of the other twenty-one; however, in practice you’ll most often encounter these three. However, a funny aspect of choosing your favorite four-in-hand configuration arrises when you consider the challenge of playing consecutive notes with the same hand: You can’t escape! It turns out that changing the order of bells in your hands only succeeds in moving the problem to another part of the piece!

Carla and I describe how this all works in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner: “All you have to do is remember which bells are in each hand, when each plays, and when to turn each one off.” Simple, no?

Jun 15

Oh, How I Love Jesus – for eight handbells

The tune OH, HOW I LOVE JESUS is a simple one; its composer is unknown. It’s been sung for quite a long time as a gentle expression of faith in Christ for young children and mature adults. We hope you’ll enjoy playing our arrangement for eight handbells!

There is a name I love to hear, I love to sing its worth;
it sounds like music in my ear, the sweetest name on earth.
Oh, how I love Jesus, Oh, how I love Jesus,
Oh, how I love Jesus, because he first loved me!

It tells me of a Savior’s love, who died to set me free;
it tells me of his precious blood, the sinner’s perfect plea.
Oh, how I love Jesus, Oh, how I love Jesus,
Oh, how I love Jesus, because he first loved me!

It tells of one whose loving heart can feel my deepest woe;
who in each sorrow bears a part that none can bear below.
Oh, how I love Jesus, Oh, how I love Jesus,
Oh, how I love Jesus, because he first loved me!

Purchasing this 8-bell arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group (plus the accompaniment score) – 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, 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.

Find Larry and Carla on Facebook!

Jun 12

Home on the (Free) Range!

Home on the Range is an American cowboy song romanticizing life in the old West. You know… riding horses, herding cattle, sleeping under the stars, and sitting by the campfire at night. There are some of us who think about how much easier that would be than working in the big city with its manic drive to succeed. To help you get that sense of relaxation, you can download and play our new free arrangement of Home on the Range!

Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Home, home on the Range;
Where the deer and the antelope play;
Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word,
And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Downloading this free arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain copies for your handbell group, and 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.

Find Larry and Carla on Facebook!

Jun 11

Why do each of us hold our bells differently?

If you’ve watched our eight-bell videos, you may have noticed that Carla and I hold our handbells in different ways. The handbell terminology is that she’s using “British four-in-hand”, while I’m using “American four-in-hand”, which is also known as “ring and knock”. The difference will always be there, because we each are sticking with what we learned long ago as new ringers; switching styles would be very, very difficult, because what each of us do has become to automatic.

Four-in-hand (abbreviated “4iH”) really is a bit of a misnomer, since it really is four bells in two hands, not four bells in each hand (or one hand). Somewhere along the line, the present term stuck, and so we just use it without questioning it, since no one worries (much) about whether the term fits its meaning.

American 4iH is called “ring and knock”, because one bell is played the same way you’d play it if you just one bell in your hand – that’s the “ring” bell. The other is turned 90º so that its clapper direction is perpendicular to the other bell; newbie 4iHers are often told that they play that bell as if they’re knocking on a door. The reason for the 90º rotation is to “orthogonalize” (separate) the ringing directions of the two bells so that they can be controlled independently. When the crossed bells are laid on a surface, the top one (“primary”) is the “ring” bells and the bottom one (“secondary”) is the “knock” bell.

British 4iH also sets up with the same sort of perpendicularity, except that the secondary is the “ring” bell and the primary is played with an inward motion. Carla’s written a wonderful article on the subject which I encourage you to check out. Suffice it to say, however, that the different setups are enough to make our individual ringing appearances somewhat different.

Take a look!

Jun 06

New 3-octave Christmas music!

Handbell folks find it’s never too early to start thinking about what we’re going to play for the Christmas (technically, Advent + Christmas + Epiphany) season. The world around us associated handbells with Christmas, so we have to be ready to play in church, at Christmas parties, and even outdoor events such as parades.

Today we announce a dozen new Christmas arrangements for three octaves of handbells. They range in difficulty from Level 1 to Level 3, with most of them being Level 2. That means your ensemble will be able to prepare then fairly rapidly – and that means your congregation or audience won’t have to wait too long to see/hear you in performance!

We’ve assembled a video of excerpts from each arrangement:

3-Octave Handbell Music for Christmas and Advent – arr. Larry Sue from Larry and Carla – Handbell Duo on Vimeo.

And here’s the list of songs in the order on the video. Have fun browsing and shopping!

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

Our first US duet performance

Many of you know that Carla and I (Larry) were in a long-distance relationship between California and England for several years. After getting engaged in 2011, we worked on getting her a fiancée visa; it was approved in time for August 2012 to be the Month of One-Way Plane Tickets.

I flew from California to England, then we went from England to the Bay View Week of Handbells, and from there back to California to get married. Before that all happened, we’d already started putting down roots at the Los Altos United Methodist Church (and one in Los Altos… not the one in Long Beach).

And when we got back, Paul, the LAUMC organist, asked us to play in the morning services. The date was September 9th, which meant we had just three weeks to get ready. We’d already started practicing eight-bell music, so it seemed to be reasonable. Then something like this happened:

Paul: “So, there are three morning services.”

Larry & Carla: “Sounds good. How many pieces should we play?”

Paul: “How about three?”

Minor shock. That was because our entire eight-bell repertoire at that time consisted of three pieces. So off we went to practice, and then we played everything we knew for our new church family. That, of course, meant not only learning new music for future opportunities, but also writing it first. So began a wonderful four-year relationship with LAUMC which would have continued through the present had we not moved to Michigan.

“Holy Manna” was one of the three pieces we played that wonderful morning. The video, as it happens, was from a concert we played on a 2019 visit to California. Enjoy!

Holy Manna – for 8 Handbells – arr. Larry Sue from Larry and Carla – Handbell Duo on Vimeo.

May 31

New freebie: “Daisy Bell” for eight handbells!

Daisy Bell, also known as A Bicycle Built for Two, was written in the late nineteenth century by Harry Dacre. If you’re movie buff, you’ll probably remember that it was sung by Hal, the computer from 2001, A Space Odyssey. I remember learning it from my mom and grandmother.

Most people I know sing only the chorus (that’s true of other songs, such as By the Light of the Silvery Moon. And that’s true of our free eight-bell arrangement, mostly because that’s the familiar part.

Anyway, here are all of Harry Dacre’s original lyrics from 1893:

There is a flower within my heart, Daisy, Daisy!
Planted one day by a glancing dart,
Planted by Daisy Bell!
Whether she loves me or loves me not,
Sometimes it’s hard to tell;
Yet I am longing to share the lot
Of beautiful Daisy Bell!

Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer, do!
I’m half crazy,
All for the love of you!
It won’t be a stylish marriage,
I can’t afford a carriage,
But you’ll look sweet upon the seat
Of a bicycle built for two!

We will go “tandem” as man and wife, Daisy, Daisy!
“Ped’ling” away down the road of life, I and my Daisy Bell!
When the road’s dark we can both despise P’liceman and “lamps” as well;
There are “bright lights” in the dazzling eyes Of beautiful Daisy Bell!
(Chorus)

I will stand by you in “wheel” or woe, Daisy, Daisy!
You’ll be the bell(e) which I’ll ring you know! Sweet little Daisy Bell!
You’ll take the “lead” in each “trip” we take, Then if I don’t do well;
I will permit you to use the brake, My beautiful Daisy Bell!
(Chorus)

Downloading this free arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain copies for your handbell group, and 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.

May 28

What does it mean to “specialize in bass handbell ringing”?

I’m a “bass ringing specialist”. The simple explanation of that phrase is that some people think that I’m reasonably proficient at ringing bass bells. I realize that still requires a bit of clarification, because the bass clef in modern handbell music tops out at C5 (which is written as a middle C on the handbell grand staff). Some of those “bass bells” are a bit on the small side, since C5 weighs a bit over one pound (comparable to a standard softball).

The bells grow in size more or less exponentially as you go down the scale. C4 weighs about three pounds and C3 weighs seven to eleven pounds, depending on manufacturer). These weights are for bronze handbells, and so the bronze C2 weighs between fifteen and twenty pounds, depending on manufacturer. There’s a huge weight improvement for Malmark aluminum bells; the C2 of this type weighs just nine pounds – but the aluminum casting is a lot larger than the corresponding bronze one, so the actual effort of ringing each bell is approximately equivalent because of the tradeoff between raw mass and weight distribution.

For handbell folks, the idea of “bass” seems to be from B3 downward (which corresponds well to piano music, where middle C actually is C4 – handbell scores are transposed down one octave from actual pitch). Bass ringers, then, are the members of the ensemble who typically handle the octave from C3-B3; if you’re fortunate to have more, those bass bells can extend all the way down to G1.

The challenge of bass ringing means that you have to keep up with the ensemble while slinging larger, heavier bells than everyone else. That entails more intense lifting and more forceful damping, because those large castings have to be tamed with more power than the little ones. The larger castings also mean that the clapper swing distance is correspondingly larger, so you have to account for that in the timing of your ringing stroke. They also take up a lot more real estate on the table; a treble ringer typically needs only about two or three feet of horizontal space to set up, while a bass ringer playing half of the octave C3-B3 needs about twice that. At the Bay View Week of Handbells, there are five “deep pit” ringers covering a double set of C2-B2 (plus one each of G1-B1 and C3), each with about eight linear feet of table space.

BVWOH Deep Pit 2011

I think “specializing” is best interpreted as “being the one who gets to do it”; in many handbell choirs, the bass ringers are the ones who can actually wield those bells creditably. In the first handbell choir I joined, there were two of us playing the lowest octave for a year, and then my partner moved on. So I became a specialist by virtue of being given the opportunity to play “CD4, and anything to the left that you can manage”. That was the beginning; fortunately, I’ve had lots of great bass ringing teammates over the last few decades, so the journey hasn’t always been a solo endeavor.

Eight years of the voyage was with Low Ding Zone, the World’s First Bass-Only Handbell Ensemble. We found that Bay Bells, the community ensemble with which we played, had five solid bass ringers. Someone had to ask the question (okay, it was me): “What if we formed a bass handbell ensemble?” For the eight years from 2005-2013, LDZ created and performed a lot of wild and crazy “heavy metal” music, and even now I spend some time writing a new piece for bass handbell ensemble, such as the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Sumo Fairy”.

By the way, there are even larger handbells out there. The Malmark factory has made some seriously huge bronze ones for research purposes, the largest of which is a G0 that weighs between 25 and 30 pounds. When it’s rung, the lip of the casting oscillates visibly (about an inch), and the mess of partials is so complex that it sounds like a gong. Carla and I saw this giant when we toured the factory in 2015, and couldn’t pass up the opportunity when asked, “you wanna ring it?”

May 23

Why is handbell music notated an octave lower?

In case you didn’t already know, handbell music is notated an octave lower than the bells actually sound. For instance, the “middle C” that handbell ringers read really is the C that’s on the third space (counting upward) of the treble staff. The convention in place, however, is to name a particular note by its letter name (possibly with an attached “flat” or “sharp”) and an octave number. Octave numbers are oriented toward the standard 88-key piano, where the bottom C is called “C one” and written “C1”. That makes a piano’s middle C to be C4, and its top key to be C8. Yes… it’s okay to dash over to your piano to check!

The current production range across all bell manufacturers is G1 to C9. That’s seven-and-a-half octaves, just a bit wider than an 88-key piano… but about an octave notes higher. C9 in piano-speak is nine ledger lines above the staff, and that makes it more than a bit challenging to (sight) read if you notate handbells a la piano. At the bottom end of the scale, C2 is only two ledger lines below the bass staff. So it makes a lot of sense to transpose the bell notes one octave downward so that their pitch range is centered vertically on the grand staff.

Here’s a quick comparison of the Cs in each instrument:

There are other devices implemented in handbell music that make scores easier to read. The primary one is expressed as “doubling”. To ringers, this means to add/play the note an octave higher in the treble, and the note an octave lower in the bass. Then it’s possible to get around reading tons of ledger lines unless the composer wants those extreme notes out there on their own. Here’s an example:

In real life, it also turns out that handbell ensembles acquire their bells starting from the middle of the range and working outward. It’s an act of cooperation between musicians, publishers, and manufacturers. It makes it easier for the musicians to read the scores, and standardizes the publication/editing process. Finally, the bells at the extreme ends of the range are less frequently played; in the case of the lowest bass bells, they also are frightfully expensive (currently up to about $7,000 apiece), so most ensembles are still figuring out how to get them. That means that with the octave-down transposition, the music is very readable.

And making life easier for everyone is a big step to keeping us all happy and making great music!

May 20

It’s small ensemble time!

Small (handbell) ensembles are much more the order of the day after mid-May, at least in the Northern hemisphere. Pretty much everyone in the United States syncs their calendar to the end of the school year, and so family vacations and summer programs ramp up, resulting in a local population decrease as people get out of town. So when this happens, large handbell ensembles also shut down for a couple of months (but not until they’ve performed their spring concerts!).

Despite the temporary exodus, we’ve found that there are a lot of folks who want to keep the handbell music going during the summer. Most of the time it’s to add our special kind of music to their church services and social gatherings. Sometimes it’s to take advantage of the opportunity to try something new and challenging or to acquire new skills, such as four-in-hand ringing.

Whatever the reason, we have lots of handbell scores suitable for this. Our music for six, eight, twelve, or sixteen bells can be played with two to eight ringers. Many of our “Surprisingly Easy”™ eight-bells scores, in particular, can be learned in just a few rehearsals and are ideal for summer services and events.

If you haven’t tried small ensemble ringing, this is a great way to start. You only have to find a friend or two to join the fun, and decide on which piece(s) you’d like to play!