Here’s a new eight-handbell arrangement of the famous hymn Sweet Hour of Prayer. The hymn tune was composed by William Bradbury (who gave us many other wonderful tunes as well – can you name one or two?). This arrangement can easily be transposed to work with choir as a thoughtful, meditative piece for your service.
Mar 14
Faith of Our Fathers – New Eight-Bell Music!
As spring rapidly approaches, we’re back to recording more eight-bell music. Our latest release is Faith of Our Fathers, one of the famous hymns of the nineteenth century.
This arrangement is easy enough that you should be able to prepare it for Father’s Day!
Jan 25
Sing Praise to God (Who Reigns Above)
Sometimes we end up writing a “standard” and a “surprisingly easy”™ version of a particular piece. The reason for this, of course, is that sometimes the standard versions can be quite challenging. So we don’t want to prevent anyone from being able to enjoy playing a tune because they’re still on the learning curve.
In this case, we have a new standard version of Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above which follows the “Surprisingly Easy”™ one we released a while back. No worries – they’re both available through the same web page!
Jan 20
One Day!
Well, that’s not a really-I’ll-eventually-get-to-it promise… it’s the title of our just-released eight-handbell hymn arrangement. One Day is one of the hymns that tells of what Jesus Christ did with no uncertainty – He’s our Example, and Redeemer, and Hope. Our arrangement shares the excitement of knowing that!
We hope you’ll take a look, and that you’ll give this fun new score a try!
Jan 03
O Worship the King!
There are many hymns whose words are sung with multiple hymn tunes (just take a look at your metrical index!). Some time ago we put out an arrangement of the LYONS hymn tune which is commonly used for O Worship the King… and today we’ve added an eight-bell score for HANOVER, one of the other tunes that fit the same words.
Do take a look and see which one is more familiar to you!
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LYONS: |
HANOVER: |
Jan 01
Welcome to 2016!
Happy New Year! We hope your 2016 will be wonderful!
We’ll be back in the swing of things on January 6th (because that’s how far the Twelve Days of Christmas extend), and then we’ll be working on putting out new music for eight and twelve bells (maybe sixteen bells, too… but we have to write the scores first!).
Meanwhile, we hope your Christmas was as merry, and incredible, and hopeful as you ever wished it could be!
Dec 12
Deal with the Christmas Rush
It’s getting into the middle of December, and that means the Christmas Rush (whatever that happens to mean to you) is in full surge. For most of us musicians, it probably means surviving the last couple of rehearsals and performances.
But… sometimes that very, very late request comes in. Maybe someone’s had their musicians cancel due to illness or an emergency – and you’ve been asked to fill the void. The problem is that you have only six… or four… or just two handbell players. Oh, and you need music, too.
We’ve heard from several friends who have found themselves in this situation, and have been pleased to be able to provide a solution via our music for eight, twelve, or even sixteen bells. If you search around YouTube, there seem to be a few more videos of our friends playing our music, so you can get a look at how well they did!
In case you haven’t ordered from us before, it’s easy. Everything is done online, so under normal conditions you’ll have your music almost immediately:
- Put the music you’d like to purchase into your online cart.
- Use the checkout interface to submit payment through PayPal. You’ll need to provide your email address (and some other contact information) when you do this.
- Check your inbox for an email with download links – if you don’t see one, you might want to check your spam folder just in case.
- Click on each download link to receive a PDF copy of the music you’ve bought.
- Take your music, and have fun playing it!
We also have some FAQs and buying guides that you can peruse.
If you have any difficulties getting music, please let us know. Occasionally the Internet does something odd. We’re happy to work with you to ensure that you can get to playing as quickly as possible!
We wish you a great holiday season, and hope that 2016 will be filled with hopes and dreams that are fulfilled in glorious and wonderful ways!
Dec 05
Advent’s in Full Swing!
This coming Sunday will be “Advent 2” (imaginative, yes? 😀 ). It’s the second of the four Sundays before Christmas. It’s a season of preparation for the coming of the Christ Child, and many churches put a lot of effort into making it something to remember.
If you participate in the music ministry at your church, you know what I mean. Choirs are learning loads of music, and in many places even the children are rehearsing a drama presentation to thrill their parents (as well as the rest of the congregation). I remember, fondly, many years of learning and directing Christmas cantatas at churches I’ve attended.
For those of us who are handbell musicians, the holiday season can be even more active. That’s because there are opportunities to play in many other places – seniors’ communities, Christmas parties, and even family gatherings – that are added to our normal church commitments. If you’re in a community handbell choir, you almost certainly are putting on a series of concerts as well.
Now and then we’ve heard from friends, though, that they have only a handful of handbell ringers available for their Christmas Eve services. And they’ve also told us that our music for eight bells (and twelve-bells, and sixteen bells) has made it possible for them to keep the music going right up to Christmas morning (well, technically, midnight at the end of Christmas Eve when that Very Special Service ends in candlelit, thoughtful darkness). If you’re need some music to play with smaller numbers, we invite you to take a look!
No matter what, though, we wish you a wonderful Advent and Christmas, and hope the Savior who came to give life to this world will bring bright and hopeful light to your heart.
Nov 26
We Gather Together
It’s Thanksgiving Day, possibly one of the highest-caloric-content dates on the American calendar. There’ll be turkey, potatoes/rice, candied yams, stuffing, cranberry sauce, ham, mulled cider, and pies, pies, and pies for many of us today (perhaps to carbo-fat-protein-load for Black Friday?).
Anyway, we’ve just added our eight-bell arrangement of We Gather Together (hymn tune KREMSER) to our catalog, and hope that you’ll take a look at it. Perhaps you can buy a copy and take it to the feast tonight! 🙂
Nov 25
We Three Kings
We had such a huge response to our freebie offer last week that we’ve decided to offer one more free download this season. It’s our recently-revised “standard” eight-bell arrangement of We Three Kings. If you already have it (and get the new version, of course), you’ll notice that the changes are all in the first verse. This means you won’t have to do too much work to learn the new version! This offer is good until Friday evening, so come get it quickly!
We hope you have a great Christmas season!
