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 …
Category: Eight-Bell
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) …
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 …
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 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 …
Aug 10
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Today, we’re releasing our new eight-handbell arrangement of Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing. It’s a great piece with which to start the new season, especially if you’d like to give your full-size bell choir a bit of additional time to prepare their first piece for service. Do take a look, and pick up the …