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Choosing Good Music for Handbell Choirs

Kevin McChesney

Choosing music for your handbell group is a big job, and how you choose your music is one of the most fundamental elements of a successful handbell program. Today's directors are bombarded with promotional materials from publishers. Thousands upon thousands of pieces are out there from which to choose. Many directors will choose a great deal of music while in their cars listening to publisher demonstration CDs. They are convenient and simple to pop in the car's player as you head to the grocery store or to pick up the kids. Something will strike you, you will make a note of it, and that is what your group will end up playing. If they are lucky, you at least took the extra step of looking up the difficulty level! There is great value to listening to promotional recordings when selecting music. But that is just the first step—the step that separates the favorites from the pieces that you don't want.

Beyond checking the difficulty level, it’s important to study the score for technically challenging spots. Get an overview of the difficulty of the individual parts (particularly the bass). Find the musical challenges that will take rehearsal time like tempo changes, ritards, expressive devices, and so on. Are chimes used? Is the tempo manageable? These things will take some rehearsing to work out. Most importantly, don't just listen to a piece once; select music your group will relate well to, and that will reach your congregation or audience. The most common mistake in choosing music is to select something that is too difficult. There is certainly nothing wrong with presenting difficult music, but it is important to understand that difficult music takes more rehearsal time. WAY too much challenging music is presented with WAY too few rehearsals.

Here are some general guidelines for choosing handbell music:

There is nothing wrong with doing simple music well. In fact, go out of your way to program pieces that are technically simple for your group, so that you can focus rehearsal time on musicianship and presentation.
Listen through pieces more than once and spend some time in score study as described above. Successful handbell programs play music that suits their group and their listeners well.
The AGEHR level designations are valuable guidelines, but they are only guidelines. With some study, you will find that some Level 2 pieces are quite challenging and some Level 4 pieces are quite approachable.
Stretch the group and help its growth by programming challenges. The rule here is simply to be careful not to stretch too much all at one time. The top groups in the handbell world became the top groups by moving ahead step by step.
Choose music for the group you have, not the one you wish you had. For instance, because of turnover in the group you may have to tone down the challenges for a while. This is not a step backwards; it is choosing music intelligently.
Good music is good music. "Good music" is music that works well for your group. If you own 5 octaves, you also own 3 octaves or even 2. Don't rule out music simply because it doesn't use all the bells you own, especially since there may well be occasions when you have ringers missing during the course of the year.
New is not necessarily better. (Of course, sometimes it is!) It is often a good idea to repeat something the group has played before. This is good for confidence and strength in the overall program.

Time spent choosing music intelligently and with careful consideration is time spent guaranteeing a handbell program that will present music with strong musicianship, communication, and confidence.

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