Struggling ringers often feel like their ringing problems are their own fault, but how the director runs the bell choir makes a huge difference in results. In this article, I’ll explore how assignments, music choices, and equipment problems affect struggling ringers and beginners. Continue reading Setting ringers up for success
Tag Archives: struggling ringer
Marking music
Marking music can help – or hinder – music reading. Inexperienced music readers write too much information on sheet music instead of learning to read music notation. Sheet music already contains 95% of the information needed to play the piece. Cluttering it up with English is a crutch, and makes it more difficult to read, not easier. Continue reading Marking music
No ringer left behind – Music reading challenges
There are many resources for learning music notation, both in print and online. This article won’t attempt to duplicate those, but instead focus on challenges and confusion handbell musicians may experience. Ringers with little or no prior music reading background may want to work through a workbook. I especially like Alfred’s Essentials of Music Theory – Complete. Note the catalog number (16486 – book with 2 listening CDs), as Alfred has several similar products. It’s an inexpensive resource. Though the book is available without CDs, ear training will help ringers improve. Ringers can start wherever the book presents new information, on page 1 for some, perhaps a few chapters into the book for others, and work through the book as far as the director suggests. Continue reading No ringer left behind – Music reading challenges
No ringer left behind – Communication
Often ringers struggle to keep up with others in a bell choir. Joining an established handbell group is like jumping onto a moving train. Integrating new ringers, especially if they don’t read music yet, can take time but yield big dividends. Or maybe they aren’t new, but they struggle because they didn’t get a good orientation to ringing. As the director or fellow ringer, you may struggle yourself to help them, because you just don’t understand what causes their mistakes. Many struggling ringers are adult beginners, and they haven’t learned the language of music. If you learned music yourself as a child, it’s second nature, and you may not know how to teach basic music principles, or remember how you learned them. It would be like a native speaker teaching the language to an immigrant. Continue reading No ringer left behind – Communication
Sight-impaired ringers
Handbell musicians often assume it’s OK to enlarge handbell music for sight-impaired ringers. However, copyright law restricts the right to copy as follows:
1) What: literary (not musical) works
2) Who can copy: institutions that exist to serve the blind, like the Braille Institute
3) For: the legally blind Continue reading Sight-impaired ringers