This article, entitled "How We Taught Ourselves to Ring", was
written by Duncan Hector and appeared in Reverberations, the magazine of
the Handbell Ringers of Great Britain.
I live in the hamlet of Bygrave in North Hertfordshire. We have 100
houses, 209 electors, one Saxon Church, one bell - no shop, no pub, no
village hall and a year ago we had no bell ringers! It was at a meeting of
the Friends of St Margaret's (our little church) that I suggested the idea
of "ringing in" the Millennium and as we have only one church
bell, we would do it using handbells.
Little did I know what this stray remark would lead to. It all started in October 1998 and very soon everyone in the handbell world seemed to be helping us get off the ground. Fortunately, I have a good sized Lodge in my garden which we could use for our practice sessions. Shirley Wardrop of Concord lives two miles away and kindly lugged boxes of bells to Bygrave each week and taught us the basics of handbells. We struggled though because few of us had ever played a musical instrument and most could not read music. However, we did well enough to play a selection of carols at the church on Christmas Eve.
I acquired a 3 octave set of Malmark chimes from Nigel Bullen of Mayola Music who is an easy 30 minute drive away. The main problem was that we couldn't play anything other than very simple music - we needed training! Nigel had the solution - "The Handbell Handbook" which is a 10 session course written by Guy Ratcliffe - we bought one "Director's" book along with six "student" books and a CD. The total cost was £83. We soon realised that this course is quite exceptional and very affordable. We pay £1 per session which goes towards the cost of the books and music we need to purchase. With a total of 13 ringers we were taking £13 for each lesson, so in 10 lessons we made £130 which easily paid for the course with lots left over for other music.
A lesson takes us about an hour and a half and we then stop and have coffee and a chat before going home. It soon became clear that the "teacher" could be anyone. The course is comprehensive, so as you go along everyone learns how to read music and at the end of each lesson there are always two new tunes to learn and play. This means that everyone leaves on a "high". To make sure that we went at the right speed for everyone, we got a non musical member of the team to be the "director". His job is to read through each lesson and get us to count different rhythms etc. He also participates as a student so we all learn together at HIS speed. It was a wonderful formula and shows how good this course really is. We did find it difficult when less than 6 people turned up. This is where the CD comes in. All of the tunes are on the CD and it is possible to "play along" with them. My CD player has a "repeat" feature which means that the selected tune plays time after time. This is a really effective way to practise. Unfortunately none of the exercises are on the CD so I had to play them off my computer. Using special music software, I "typed in" a number of the exercises and saved them on disc. The computer is quite clever because you can play back at any speed you like. In practical terms few teams are likely to be able to use this method, but an extra CD would be very useful - you could actually do the whole course on your own at home and have hours of pleasure into the bargain. I believe that Nigel Bullen of Mayola Music is taking me up on this idea so hopefully one will be available next year.
At the end of the course you are invited to run a concert for family and friends to hear your new found musical skills. All the necessary advice on how to organise this is contained in the Handbook. We decided that it would be a Charity concert and that we would learn enough tunes to play for around 30 minutes. So, we bought a number of books specifically for 12 bells and started selecting our favourites. Unfortunately, one of our members, Rita Martin who was 82 died suddenly and the whole team was absolutely stunned. Rita had taken up the violin in her 70's and played regularly in a local orchestra and had been in our group since its inception. We decided that the concert must go ahead and that it would be in memory of Rita. We advertised "Bells on a Summer's Afternoon" around the village pointing out that all profits would go to Rita's favourite charity, the National Children's Home. The concert would be held in the church and would be followed by cream teas which we provided in the Lodge. The church was crammed to capacity with 90 people. We raised £285 for our worthy cause. People were fascinated to look at and handle the chimes and some were astounded that we played from normal music. As a result we attracted another 8 new recruits. So, we are running another course which means that by Harvest Festival we will have 20 ringers (10% of the adult population of Bygrave!). Our finances will improve too because at £1 a session we should collect a clear £80. This means we will have plenty of cash to buy more music for future concerts.
We have now joined the Handbell Ringers of Great Britain and aim to attend our first rally in November. We are also committed to playing at the Harvest Festival service in our church as well as at the Carol service and the Millennium "ring in". A year ago we couldn't even spell BELLS - now we can play them!
Since that article was written in 1999, things have moved on. The group was originally formed simply for the purpose of ringing in the millennium, but our millennium concert was such a success that we decided not to stop there !
We currently have thirteen members who participate in our public performances.. We are no longer members of the Handbell Ringers of Great Britain, but we continue to perform widely in the local area. Details of concerts and church services at which we have played can be found on the Public Performances page of this web site.
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