Nicholas Barnard
College Writing
Thomasenia Hutchins
Playing handbells is a paradox defined by dichotomies. It is a group instrument, and an individual one. Playing them is physically demanding and relaxing. Engaging yourself with them is mentally taxing, and soothing. To the observer it appears easy, but it isn't for the bell player who makes it look that way. I was attracted to handbells because it was an instrument that required more than one person to play. This creates a unique team aspect to playing handbells not found in any other instrument. Teamwork is essential to playing handbells; handbell music could not exist without it. Handbells are an obsession of mine as a result of the teamwork, uniqueness of the instrument, the demanding rehearsals, and the mystique that comes of being a member of a unique instrumental group.
The first day I rang bells I remember despising the feeling afterwards. Specifically the soreness in my breasts from damping the bells against them. In my first years of handbell choir I remember a lot of hard work, counting rhythms, and rehearsing what bell I should pick up with each hand. While these basics don't disappear from playing bells, they become more routine and the more advanced hurdles, such as sharing bells between people, and managing turning pages of the music while you are playing at a ravenous pace.
Teamwork is more fundamental to bell playing than any team sport. Unlike an orchestra or sports team where every member is capable of producing a whole range of products allowing the melody, harmony, or positions to be duplicated, each bell player usually plays two bells, making her responsible for two notes. This makes each player interdependent on each other. A melody is an impossible task to achieve with only two notes, therefore to make music you need your fellow bell players and they need you.
The skill of bell playing that cannot be taught, but only learned through experience, is a realization of the gestalt, the whole reality of the song, and where your part fits in with the whole. I have had several times during rehearsal where the director would be interrupted, and the group would finish the song because we all had a total image of the song, and listened for our audible cues. Bell playing is a team musical sport; the instrument cannot be played without the team.
One of my most memorable bell performances was at a wedding. I muddied the whole piece with a noticeable wrong note, and let the team down. We were playing a song that I had well learned. In our final rehearsals for this wedding though I had made the mistake of playing a C#3 instead of a C3. (The three indicates the octave of the bell.) I had identified the reason for this as a simple problem, the song before it utilized a C#3 and I had failed to exchange it for the C3 in-between songs. In our final rehearsal in the wedding hall I made the simple bell switch, and our rehearsal went perfectly. It would not be that way in the wedding. I made a proud point of playing this note, as I believed I had switched the bells. I lowered the bell, snapped my wrist, and begun to move the bell in the proper circle. I recognized the wrong note about one and a half beats into the whole note, and stopped the sound by damping the bell against my breast. Despite my fast response the damage had been done, the audience obviously knew that a wrong note had been played. Most of my handbell choir experiences weren't this embarrassing. Even if I never had the unique events my six years of playing bells yielded, I would still consider it one of the most enjoyable and exciting experiences of my life.
Playing Bells is an experience that requires many skills both physical and mental. I have just touched the tip of iceberg of handbell skills. Bells are a mystical art replete with a myriad of levels of knowledge and methodology. They are the most unique instrument in the world for an innumerable number of reasons. Given this mystique many would wrongly think that they would have no chance at playing bells. Handbells are an assessable instrument available to those who enjoy a challenge, and will struggle to overcome that challenge avoiding defeat. I was up to the challenge of playing bells when my opportunity came, and I haven't regretted a minute of it.