Feb 20

Here’s some new music!

We’ve just released our newest “Surprisingly Easy”™ collection of eight-bell pieces. This time it’s a set of hymn arrangements that you’ll find suitable when you need to prepare something for church but have only a few people to ring. Or you might have been thinking about getting into playing eight-handbell duets – these are a great way to start!

This collection contains these hymns:

  • A Mighty Fortress is Our God
  • Fairest Lord Jesus
  • Hyfrydol
  • I Need Thee Every Hour
  • Take the Name of Jesus with You
  • Take My Life and Let It Be (hymn tune: MESSIAH)
  • This is My Father’s World
  • To God Be the Glory

Feb 09

More new music is on the way!

We truly appreciate the response we’ve had to our music over the past couple of years. That’s especially true for the new generation of eight-bell music that we’ve had the privilege of publishing. Well, okay… we wrote it, so we publish it.

Anyway, it’s been great fun to find out that so, so many hymns, folk songs, and even classical pieces can be adapted to this minimalist part of the handbell world, and we’ll continue to celebrate that fact by releasing some new titles in the near future.

We hope you’ll enjoy making the next leg of the journey with us!

Jan 28

2015 seems to have started, finally!

It’s nearly the end of January… and it feels as if the year is trying to run away without us!

We finally are getting around to releasing a brand new piece! We debuted it in our Alzheimer’s benefit concert on January 23rd. We call it “Grizzly’s Peak”, but you might know it by another title. 😀

Nov 27

Throwback Thursday

No… this isn’t a reference to how Thanksgiving used to be. Rather, it’s about music!

Until recently, all we had for our piece A Snail’s Pace was a simple Finale playback MP3. The notes were there, but the piano patch just didn’t show how it would sound with real-life handbells.

But… at the Bay View Week of Handbells in August, A Snail’s Pace was one of the pieces selected for the repertoire, so courtesy of Pierpont Productions we have a video of over a hundred handbell musicians playing it!

Just surf to our product page for this piece, and you’ll find the video there!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nov 05

Christmas Roses

We’re heading into Christmas season (well, after “Thanksgiving season” if you live in the USA), and so we’re continuing to refresh and expand our holiday repertoire.

Our ringing friend Maria suggested that we might create an eight-bell arrangement of the lovely carol “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming”, and we’ve taken some time to put one together.

We hope you’ll enjoy the video below, and that you might decide to give a try!

Oct 29

It’s time for another “Surprisingly Easy” collection!

We’ve been getting some hopeful messages asking about when we’ll be creating another one of our “Surprisingly Easy” collections. One friend even said that she’s found them to be very useful for teaching her ringers “four in hand” ringing, while others have said they’re having fun.

So… we’ve just released our third (!) “Surprisingly Easy” Christmas collection. We hope you’ll give it a try, and that you’ll be ringing them to celebrate the holidays!

Oct 22

Midnight

No… we don’t usually stay up until midnight unless it’s Christmas Eve and we’re playing at our church’s 11:00 p.m. service. But we do get to enjoy Christmas midnight by playing the Puerto Rican carol A la Media Noche!

We’ve just added it to the Choraegus store, and hope that you’ll enjoy playing it!

Oct 18

The Most-Requested Handbell Piece of All?

We’ve finally created an arrangement of Mykola Leontovych’s “Ukrainian Bell Carol”, probably better-known as “Carol of the Bells”. We speculate that it’s the most-requested handbell piece of all time, if only because of the title (and Christmas advertisements!). So if you’re a four-in-hand duet, you can have this in your repertoire and not disappoint those who ask whether you can play it!

Ukrainian Bell Carol – for 8 Handbells – arr. Larry Sue from Larry and Carla – Handbell Duo on Vimeo.

Oct 14

Advent is soon… and here’s another piece to play!

As you may know, plainchant was one of the great expressions of church music. It’s been that way for hundreds of years – and some of the songs from those times are still with us. We’ve set Divinum Mysterium (aka “Of the Father’s Love Begotten”) for eight handbells, and think it will go well with your Advent and Christmas services.

Oct 04

But while you look forward to Christmas… another collection!

We’re gearing up for Christmas (because we have to practice our music now to be ready in time…)! It’s an exciting time of year because we love the holidays so much.

We really, really love sharing new music with all of you, because it means you can get something to add to your repertoire as well. So… here’s our first collection of eight-bell Irish jigs! It contains five of the ones that we’ve already released – and if you buy the collection, you can get the five of them for a bit less!

Perhaps you have a friend who’d have lots of fun with them – and maybe ask you to be the other half of the duet? 😉