A handbell is a small bell designed to be rung by hand. Grasping the bell by its slightly flexible handle (traditionally made of leather, but often now made of plastic), a person shakes or snaps it to make the hinged clapper inside strike. An individual handbell can be used simply as a signal to catch people's attention or summon them together, but handbells are often to be heard in tuned sets. A bell is a simple sound-making device. ...

A handbell

A small hand-held bell Photo by Montrealais. ... A small hand-held bell Photo by Montrealais. ...

Change ringing

The original purpose for which tuned sets of handbells were assembled was to give devotees of change ringing a way of rehearsing outside their towers. Rather than standing for hours in the draughty towers and annoying neighbors with their practice, they could sit comfortably indoors while they perfected their understanding of the complicated algorithms of change ringing. Since the bells used in change ringing generally consist of six to twelve bells tuned to the diatonic scale, so do the handbell sets used by change ringers. Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a series of mathematical patterns called changes, without attempting to ring a conventional tune. ... In music theory, a diatonic scale (from the Greek diatonikos, to stretch out; also known as the heptatonia prima; set form 7-35) is a seven-note musical scale comprising five whole-tone and two half-tone steps, in which the half tones are maximally separated. ...

Handbell Performance

A handbell choir or handbell ensemble is typically armed with a fuller set of bells, as it aims to ring recognizable music with melodies and harmony, as opposed to the mathematical permutations used in change ringing. The bells generally include all notes of the chromatic scale within the range of the bell set used. While a smaller group might make do with 25 bells (two octaves), the sets are often larger, ranging up to the eight-octave set owned by Westminster Choir College. The bells are typically arranged chromatically on foam-covered tables; these tables protect the bronze surface of the bell, as well as keep the bells from rolling when placed on their sides. Unlike an orchestra or choir in which each musician is responsible for one line of the texture, in a bell ensemble each musician is responsible for particular notes, sounding his or her assigned bells whenever that note appears in the music. Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity and chords, actual or implied, in music. ... The chromatic scale is the scale that contains all twelve pitches of the Western tempered scale. ... In music, an octave (sometimes abbreviated 8ve or 8va) is the interval between one musical note and another with half or double the frequency. ... Westminster Choir College of Rider University is a college of music with a unique choral emphasis that educates men and women at the undergraduate and graduate levels for music leadership careers in churches, schools, performance, and management. ...

Handbell techniques have changed very much over the years. Donald Allured is credited with fully realizing an American "off the table" style of ringing that includes many non-ringing sound effects including stopped techniques such as plucking the clapper with the bell on the table. He is also credited for promoting precise damping or stopping of the bell sound by touching the bell casting to a soft surface, in the service of more musical results. (Allured was the founding director of the Westminster Concert Bell Choir.)

Handbell ensembles have become more popular over the last thirty years, especially in the United States. They are often associated with churches, although the past decade has seen a dramatic rise in the number of community groups. Most community groups use larger sets of handbells than an average church handbell choir, and sometimes use additional bells from different manufacturers, other bell-like instruments (such as hand chimes), and other percussion instruments. Twelve to fifteen members is a common size for a four- or five-octave group. A church building (or simply church) is a building used in Christian worship. ...

Well-known U.S. handbell ensembles include the aforementioned Westminster Concert Bell Choir in Princeton New Jersey, Sonos in the San Francisco area, The Raleigh Ringers in North Carolina, and the now defunct Campanile in Los Angeles.

Handbell music

Handbell choirs generally ring music composed specifically for the instruments because of their highly resonant sound and the unique pitch-by-pitch division of the staff among the ringers.

The coordination of the bell ringers requires a different approach from other ensembles. All the ringers read off of a single score. This score is similar to a piano score, but with an additional convention: The C# above middle C and all notes below are always written in the bass clef, and the Db above middle C and all notes above are always written in the treble clef. Handbell music is written one octave lower than the actual sound the bells make, so a "middle C bell" or bell is actually playing a note with a high C frequency. (For simplicity, the bell would still always be referred to as middle C or as C5.) In music, the term middle C refers to the note C located between the staves of the grand staff, quoted as C4 in note-octave form. ... A clef (French for key) is a symbol used in musical notation that assigns notes to lines and spaces on the musical staff. ... A clef (French for key) is a symbol used in musical notation that assigns notes to lines and spaces on the musical staff. ...

There are also a number of abbreviations and notations used exclusively or almost exclusively in handbell music: LV ("let vibrate," similar to a piano's sustain pedal); R ("ring," meaning to end the LV); SK ("shake," i.e. shaking the bell continuously during the duration of the note); TD ("thumb damp" — ringing the bell with a thumb on the casting); PL ("pluck," which means to throw down the clapper while the bell lay on the table); and SW ("swing" — to play the bell in a normal position, swing it down to the waist, then bring it and back up).

Three-octave handbell music is often assigned in diatonic note pairs starting at low C (C4) — i.e. one ringer has low C and the D above (along with the cooresponding accidentals), one ringer has the E and F above that, and similarly until the final ringer has the B below high C and high C. This is only the most common assignment system used; others are used as well, by preference or necessity (for example when there are fewer ringers, this is sometimes called *ensemble ringing"). Handbell assignments are a favorite topic of discussion among handbell directors and ringers. In Music theory, the diatonic major scale (also known as the Guido scale), from the Greek diatonikos or to stretch out, is a fundamental building block of the European-influenced musical tradition. ...

The bells themselves

The bells used in American handbell choirs are almost always English handbells. "English handbells" is a reference to a specific type of handbells, not to the country of origin. (While some American handbell choirs do use bells made in England, a large majority play bells made either by Malmark Bellcraftsmen or by Schulmerich Carillons, both based in Pennsylvania.) The major defining characteristic of an English handbell is its clapper; the clapper is on a hinge and moves back and forth in a single direction, unlike a school bell in which the clapper swings freely in any direction.

In the United Kingdom there is a distinction between what are classed as "American Handbells" and "English Handbells". The distinction is in the materials used to create the handbells. "English Handbells" are of a traditional type, with leather clapper heads and handles, "American Handbells" instead use modern matterials such as plastic and rubber to produce the same effect.

To ring the bell, the ringer moves it in such a way that the clapper strikes the inside surface of the bell, usually holding it against his or her shoulder, bell-upwards, and using the wrist to snap. The tone of the bell will continue to resonate, decaying naturally until it stops completely, or until the ringer stops the tone by damping the bell with a hand, on the body, or on a padded surface.

Tuning is a critical part of the manufacturing of the English handbell. Obviously each bell's fundamental tone must be carefully tuned; but for a sweet sound manufacturers also give their attention to each bell's overtones, being especially careful to give all the bells in a set a consistent harmonic profile. Each of the foundries has a unique formula for emphasizing or de-emphasizing certain harmonic overtones to produce that bellmaker's unique sound. Many makers of English handbells emphasize the overtone a 12th (an octave and a perfect fifth) above the fundamental; while Dutch handbell-makers Petit & Fritsen focus on the overtone a 10th (an octave and a minor third) above the fundamental. In music, tuning is the process of producing or preparing to produce a certain pitch in relation to another, usually at the unison but often at some other interval. ... Pitched musical instruments are usually based on a harmonic oscillator such as a string or a column of air. ...

Handbells can weigh as little as 4 oz. or upwards of 22 lbs.

External links

• AGEHR - American Guild of English Handbell Ringers
• HRGB - The Handbell Ringers of Great Britain
• Ringem.org (host of the venerable HANDBELL-L listserv
• Jeffers Handbell Supply
• Handbell Services, Inc.
• Malmark Bellcraftsmen
• Schulmerich Carillons
• Petit & Fritsen Bell Foundry
• Whitechapel Bellfoundry
• Recordings of Change Ringing on Handbells
• HRGBSE - The South East Region of the Handbell Ringers of Great Britain