Okay, so, I’ve been wanting to learn how to play “Carol of the Bells” on handbells for a while now. It’s such a classic, and it sounds so magical on handbells, you know? So, I finally decided to just go for it. I went online to look for some sheet music, and I found a bunch of different versions.
Search
- First, I gotta find the sheet music. I searched online, I typed “Carol of the Bells handbell sheet music” into the search bar.
- Then I just browsed through the search results and I found a few different sites that had the sheet music for free! That was convenient.
- I found one that looked pretty straightforward, it’s for a 13-note handbell set.
- I checked out a few other arrangements too, just to see what my options were. Some were for a 2-octave handbell choir, some were solo arrangements, some even had piano accompaniments.
Select
- I ended up choosing one that said it was arranged by some person named Jason Krug.
- It said it was for a 3-octave handbell set, which is what I have access to.
- It looked a bit more complicated than the 13-note version, but I figured I’d challenge myself a bit.
Practice
- I printed out the sheet music, got my bells, and started practicing.
- At first, it was pretty rough. There’s this one part with some fast changes that I just couldn’t get right.
- But I kept at it, practicing a little bit every day. I started slowly, just focusing on getting the notes right.
- Then, gradually, I started speeding it up.
- I found that it helped to break the piece down into smaller sections and just practice those over and over.
Improve
- After a few weeks, I could finally play the whole thing without messing up too much.
- It still wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely recognizable as “Carol of the Bells,” haha.
- I even tried adding in some dynamics, you know, playing some parts louder and some parts softer, to make it sound more interesting.
Record
- Once I felt pretty confident with it, I decided to record myself playing it.
- It wasn’t easy to get a good recording, though. It took me a few tries to get the sound just right.
- But finally, I got one that I was happy with.
Reflect
It was a lot of work, but it was so satisfying to finally be able to play “Carol of the Bells” on handbells. It sounds so beautiful, especially around Christmas time. I’m definitely going to keep practicing and maybe even try to learn some other handbell pieces in the future. Maybe I can even join a handbell choir someday. That would be awesome! Anyway, that’s my little handbell adventure. Hope you enjoyed hearing about it.
