When I had shoulder surgery in May 2020, Carla suggested creating some accompanied six-bell music to make playing possible for me, with the idea of us playing as a four-in-hand ringer plus a two-in-one/good-hand ringer. Two-bell-each trios or six-in-hand soloists could also perform these arrangements.
There are only a vanishingly small number of (interesting) melodies with six or fewer notes. That means the set of bells will lack at least one scale tone. So, at least to me, that means that all of these six-bell arrangements must have an accompaniment. Compositionally, it means that these collaborations between bells and keys will challenge the pianist as well.
Don’t think that six-bell music has to be simple. These, like the rest of our music, are interesting enough to be concert pieces. And while some are fairly easy, others are quite challenging. We’ve provided demonstration videos for you to watch so you can determine whether a particular piece is for you.
Our PDF score packages for six accompanied handbells contain the following:
- A complete score for handbells and accompaniment (piano), so it’s clear how the two instruments work together;
- A separate handbell score which allows the ringers to have the music on one music stand without needing page turns; and
- A separate accompaniment (piano) score, which often has a small enough number of pages to fit across a standard piano music desk. “Often” means that some of them will require one or two page turns, but you can minimize that challenge by deciding how to lay out/assemble the individual pages.
Enjoy!