We still have lots of work to do to prepare for the concert(s?) in February. But at least we took care of most of the passages needing sectional work last week, and so we should be rolling along. A few pieces still have sections we need to nail down, though, so we’ll be giving those attention today.
And then.. logistics, program, etc.!
The score revisions continue… it’s mostly about preparing for the next round, because we just can’t keep playing the same music forever. So… “Down to the River to Pray” and “Yes, We Have No Bananas” are ready to go, hopefully in a form that will make relearning them faster. 
We had a nice bit of time off between Christmas and New Year. Now that we’re back, the concert’s only seven weeks away – so we need to get moving! On Sunday, we made some nice progress (get well quickly, Bob!) Things are going well, but we still have a tremendous amount of work to do.
Hmmm. Right now, life is an outtake video. But it’s a fun outtake video. 
There still are a pile of scores to revise into the new format. Whitfield and Strong’s I Heard It Through the Grapevine is the latest one to be completed!
Lisa secured the copyright permission for us to use this one, and we’ve played it with six, seven, and eight ringers. The problem, though, was that the original sextet version had very strange assignments because that just happened to be the way we figured out how to play it. So most of us had a rather weird collection of chimes and bells back then.
Extension to seven or eight ringers ended up being a short-term attack on the problem of playability by splitting existing parts, so that didn’t really do anything to drive us to our current “bells left, chimes right” philosophy (much, much easier for piece-to-piece reset, by the way).
So… now Grapevine has been restructured for seven parts, and in “bells left, chimes right” format. It’s a relief to know that’s been done, because it also makes the piece easier to parcel out to new ringers – they don’t have to rely on the scribblings we’ve put on the old scores.
Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!
After missing a Sunday afternoon rehearsal because of the Bay Bells concerts (it’s that “shared equipment” thing), we couldn’t practice on December 11th. But on the 18th, we worked on California Dreamin’ and Rock the Dance and both of them went well!
I love the way the teamwork’s coming together for us, too – that really is the most important thing, not just the music, because a unified spirit and expression makes all the difference in presentation.
Hooray! I finished (the initial draft of the second version of) the arrangement of Rock the Dance. It seems to have come out to be a rather quirky bit of music, and that’s good. After all, we thrive on the strange and unusual.
We’ll be performing this with Kendra‘s bell choir from the Stratford School where she teaches. They’re a Level 1-2 group, so they have a part that’s on the easier side (it does occur to me that this arrangement could be rebuilt again and again based on whoever is playing with us!).
They should have fun, and so should we LDZers. Come to the concert in February and find out!
I sent nine-year old Owen an MP3 of Rock the Dance. It was partly something to amuse him, and partly a way to test the arrangement on someone who’d have no obvious handbell-based bias (for or against…). So – a somewhat objective critic.
It turns out that he doesn’t know some of the interspersed tune, such as Scotland the Brave. Not to worry – he does know the song by Queen! And so he actually listened to it more than once. Carla said he was playing it on the computer this morning.
It’s an occasion for smiles when you get a measure of approval for something you’ve done!
I had some time to work on Rock the Dance today, and ended up with what seems to be a decent full score! The next task is to break the LDZ part into the “core 7″ structuring that spells out each of our parts; I think the last few weeks of working on them have helped me to understand what has to be done. No doubt, however, that I’ll be relying on everyone else to catch the musical, notational, and logistical problems!
I have no doubt this one will also generate its own shtick, by the way. It’s just too much fun, and Kendra‘s school choir will be dying to “add stuff”. I tried it out on Owen, Carla’s nine-year old son, and he was having a good time with it – he didn’t recognize all the tunes that were spliced into the score, but that’s okay. What matters is that he enjoyed it.
Okay… off to the next step, probably tomorrow!
We put ninety minutes into Good Vibrations on Sunday, and made a lot of progress. We could feel things coming together, and we were laughing and having fun the whole time! A good time was had by all.
We did have to solve a couple of little things, like “wait… how do I move six feet in zero time?” But the solutions (e.g. take B3 chime six feet to the left at before we start) actually were easy to find, and even though it led to a similar question (with the answer “go over there and steal it back from Caroline”).
Shtick happens, too. It’s liberating to be able to go where the impulse leads (well, as long as it’s legal), just to see whether it works with the music. Hmmm… do other handbell ensembles to this sort of thing spontaneously? Anyway, we worked a bit of that out, too – but you’ll have to wait till the performance to see it!
Hooray! The revision of California Dreamin’ is done. The next step will be to see whether it actually works, of course, but I think this one has a much better chance than the last one.
We continue to discover just how much time a complete spelling-out of the actual parts saves. It seems our learning time is shortened by over 50% from when we were working from more piano-like scores, especially because some attempt at solving the assignment issues has been made up front. Hey, like my friend Terry Normandie says, “If you give ‘em something – anything – at least they’ll have something to throw rocks at.”
Works for me!