![]() choose a key so that the tonic or dominant is one of the two bottom bells otherwise, the ringer of the bottom two doesn't get to play much (this guideline applies most to small ensembles, because in larger ones the bottom ringer often rings more than two bells). a tune with some characteristic rhythm or interval will be more interesting/identifiable to the listener than one that's all quarter notes moving stepwise arrangements of well-known tunes work well with beginning/intermediate groups, because hearing a melody they know helps them stay together It's sometimes better to combine the lines and just tie notes together, even if that makes your carefully wrought fugato look odd from a musician's point of view. The most common related problem I've seen is confusion among the ringers from seeing multiple lines on a staff, with opposite stemming (to indicate contrapuntal voices). many successful members of bell choirs are not very literate, musically. Make sure you get every bell in there, to save irritation during rehearsal. There should be no key signature, and the notes are stemless. the "Bells used" chart at the beginning, which is mandatory, can take some time to get looking right. use very large print (the music is pretty far away from the ringers), number every bar (not just systems), and try to have long notes around the page turns (so ringers can put down one bell to turn, then pick it up again) a poorly planned page turn can make a piece very frustrating to rehearse. Lines are sometimes used to connect melodic notes going between clefs, to make it clear to the players that their apparently random C or B is part of a tune. You might have to cross-staff a melodic line that passes through Middle C. C#5 and below are only in bass clef, Db5 and above only in treble - even if it makes a melodic line hard to follow. With bigger choirs, lines are often doubled at the octave to keep everyone involved. Every pair of notes is played by a different person, so try to not leave the upper or lower extremes alone too long, or the players will be bored or lose track of where they are. Then 3 octaves, from C4-C7, and 4 octaves, from G3-G7, and so on. The smallest common one is 2 octaves, from (written) G below Middle C (G4) up to G6 (at the top of the treble clef). bell choirs are sized by how many octaves they play. ![]() In reality, though, they don't sound as shrill as you'd expect from playing up an octave on the piano. Some computer notation programs don't know that, so make sure you're hearing it as it will sound. handbells are transposing instruments, sounding up an octave e.g., what looks on the page like Middle C (C4) is actually C5. Here are a few things I've picked up over the years that might help when writing pieces for bells or chimes
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