Jan 27 - Solo Handbells at Early Light

Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church has 3 services each Sunday: a Contemporary service in the evening; a Traditional service at 10am; and a Contemplative service at 7:50 am called "Early Light".

Early Light is loosely based on Taize-style worship and mostly uses music from that Community, although we also use a number of songs from other sources, as long as they fit in to the "Contemplative" mood. Additionally, we sing a congregational hymn from the Presbyterian Hymnal to close each service - this hymn is also sung at the 10am Traditional Service, so it serves as a source of unity between the services. (It might even be done at the Contemporary Service, but I'm not sure.)

Anyway, I volunteer as part of the Early Light Music Ensemble and the Music Coordinator uses me both on flute and on solo bells (never on the same Sunday, though!).

I really enjoy playing bells for this because:
1) I love to play bells! ;-) and
2) it makes me a much more flexible ringer.

Why? Because we don't get the music until Monday or Tuesday, then we have one rehearsal as an ensemble on Thursday morning (and some of the musicians can't be there due to day jobs), then a run-through on Sunday morning before the service, then we play the service. This short time-frame forces me to learn my parts quickly.

Also, because the instruments ensemble vary each Sunday, I am always playing with different people and so have to learn how to integrate my instrument into their mix, follow their lead, blend my sound with them, phrase with them, etc. Since we don't have much rehearsal time, this has to happen Sunday morning "on the fly".

(I am VERY blessed that the musicians and other people at this church treat me just like any other instrumentalist. There's none of this "handbells are just toys" nonsense.)

Typically, the Coordinator contacts me the week before I'm supposed to play bells. She gives me the list of music for that Sunday & I go through all the instrumental books and tell her which parts would work for me. She takes that information and then generates what we call a "rep sheet", which lists all the repetitions for each song to be sung that Sunday.

For example, this past Sunday our first song was "Sing Praises All You Peoples" (aka "Laudate Omnes Gentes"). The rep sheet says this:

Sing Praises All You Peoples Iv1p13
8m 7x
1) Michèle intro
2) Michèle fl c1; John tacet; Jim tacet
3) Michèle fl c2; John trb c1; Jim tacet
4) Michèle tacet; John tacet; Jim ob sq1c1
5) Michèle tacet; John trb c2; Jim ob sq1c2
6) Michèle tacet; John tpt sq1c1; Jim tacet
7) Michèle kbd sop; John kbd bass; Jim kbd alto

The "Iv1p13" means that it's found in Instrumental volume 1 on page 13. The "8m 7x" means that the song is 8 measures long & we will play it 7 times.

I have the "intro" - that means that I play the melody unaccompanied (before the congregation sings). The piano comes in the last measure or two to help bring in the singers, congregation, and other instrumentalists.

For reps 2 & 3, I play the flute part. c1 and c2 refer to "circle 1" and "circle 2", a way of identifying the music in the book. I am tacet on reps 4-6, then play the keyboard soprano for the last repetition.

Here's what my music for this song looked like:

(click on the picture to see a larger version)



To make things easier to deal with on Sunday morning, I usually scan in my parts and arrange them so as to eliminate page turns as much as possible (I only have 2 hands!). Here, I re-scanned in my marked-up music so you can see what I did.

You can't tell from this scan, but my setup involved removing the F#6, putting the A#6 in its place, pre-setting the F6 over the G#6 and moving the C7 up to the A#6's home position.

Down at the bottom under "Varied Accompaniments and Solos" is the Flute part, circle 1 and circle 2. In the circle 2 part I eliminated 2 eighth notes from the part just to make it a little easier to play. (I could have played those notes with a little more practice, but I try to avoid the "flailing factor" - this is a Contemplative service, after all, and I don't want to be the center of attention - if I'm not confident I can play it with absolute smoothness, I leave it out.)

During reps 4, 5, and 6 (my tacet reps), I put all my bells back in keyboard order and pre-set the C6 over the B5 for the final rep.

Our next song was "Come Holy Spirit, Comforter" and it involved a little more modification of the parts for me. Here's my music:



(It's a little hard to see my markings, but pencil marks don't scan all that well. Sorry.)

For this song, I was tacet on reps 1-3. I played the trumpet part for rep 4 (which is on a different page & isn't in this picture), then rep 5 was the oboe part (from the oboe, clarinet, and bassoon trio -- the other instruments that day were french horn & bassoon, so the horn played the clarinet part), rep 6 was the bottom of the flute duo, and rep 7 was the top of the recorder duo.

(I goofed when I originally scanned it in & kept the top of the flute duo - that's why it's scribbled out.)

The oboe part was pretty straight-forward, no modification needed. The 2nd flute part required just a little tweaking - I took out the G#6 8th note in measure 3, and replaced the last 2 beats of m. 4 with an A6 half note, plus played a D6 dotted-half note for the first 3 beats of m. 5. There are other modifications, too. I always refer to the "lead sheet" so I can see what chords are there & choose alternate notes accordingly.

For rep 7, I played the 1st recorder part. I did a little bit of octave jumping - playing A6 where an A5 was notated, for example, and only left 2 8th notes out (one of which I decided to do at the last moment because I didn't step far enough to the left to get there comfortably - that whole "no flailing" thing, you know).

After a few more songs, we closed with Hymn #332 "Live Into Hope", the tune "Truro". I have Hal Hopson's wonderful book "The Creative Use of Handbells in Worship, Book 2: Easy Settings for a Few Ringers" which I absolutely LOVE. (I use it a lot when I play at various churches across the country!)

I planned to play the handbell part for Truro from that book on verses 2 and 4 (verse 2 down an octave and verse 4 as written), but we ended up singing only the 1st 2 verses, so I just did the as-written notes on the 2nd verse.

Whenever I mention that I play handbells in a Taize-style service, people always ask me what I actually play (there are no "handbell" parts in the instrumental books). The answer is that I play whatever is assigned to me!

By working closely with the Coordinator, I can be challenged without being overwhelmed and we bring the beautiful sound of bells to this wonderful service.

I am scheduled to play for this service 3 or 4 more times this semeseter, so I will post more about it as the year progresses.

.