Since RAACHE acquired our bells about 5 years ago, I have come to love and appreciate what handbells bring to a child's education. Handbells offer a unique opportunity to learn music and teamwork together. While each ringer has only certain assigned notes, he or she must learn to depend on, and be dependable to those who ring all the other notes! Otherwise, we have lots of bells ringing -- but no music! So students learn to feel rhythm, timing, watching a director, sensing movement and listening carefully. It's a remarkable workout!
When attending seminars, I often visit with directors of youth handbell groups, and invariably I hear a common complaint: students reach a certain point, often about age 14, and then give up the handbells in order to devote more time to another pursuit, be it basketball, soccer, violin, piano or whatever! A common sense is that handbells don't carry the benefit to the college resume that other extracurricular activities have. So, it was with great interest that I read an article which highlighted what two high school graduates wrote in their college applications.
These two college essays attest to educating the whole person through the values of handbell ringing. I'm going to pick out some of the things they wrote.
"Bell choir is a hybrid: it's a cross between a team sport and a musical instrument...It takes about ten people to perform a piece of music. If someone doesn't show up, the group cannot function properly, so playing bells has taught me to be reliable. I have become enthralled with the psychology and the physiology of playing music as a team. Music tugs at my soul...The degree of cooperation my bell choir achieves knits us together emotionally. Not only are the rhythms of my choir emotionally stimulating, they are physically stimulating as well! When I ring, the bell is an extension of my arm, and my entire body is my instrument. Thus, I have to dance--move my entire body in sync with the music -- in order to play."
"I consider handbells to be an intellectual interest because
"academic" subjects have never challenged me the way bell choir has.
Apart from the constant cooperation, when I ring, I have to keep a lot
of key components of technique constantly in mind: space, time, energy,
weight, balance, and plasticity. I am excited by the thought of
discourse [in college] with other musicians about how these concepts can
be applied to other musical instruments."
"A friend of mine wanted me to join our church's handbell choir. I was adamantly resistant to the idea of joining -- I never considered myself musical, and figured I would just embarrass myself. I agreed to show up for a practice if she(!) would watch Lord of the Rings with me. [She accepted, and] grudgingly, I showed up. At the first rehearsal, I was more than a little apprehensive and was unable to do anything but stand there and watch the notes of _Siyahamba_ and _Rondo Passacaglia_ parade past me. By the second rehearsal, I was able to play a handful of my notes./.. /I soon grew to love playing handbells. It combines physical movement with musical expression, almost a cross between choral music and dance. Tim Waugh/ (a well-known music/handbell instructor) /says that the musical instrument you are playing is not a bell; it is your body. Indeed, few other instruments allow you to feel the music as much as bells." John finishes by remarking that walking into that rehearsal taught him humility and the value of trying something new.
If you are looking for something different and worthwhile for your
homeschooled student, give us a ring!
raache - handbells