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Feel free to join JuBell Lante at any of the following outreach performances:
- Wed. May 5,at Shorewood Sr. Living Center, 2115 2nd. St. SW, 2:00 p.m.
- Madonna Meadows Sr. Living, 3035 Salem Meadows Dr. (across from the History Center) 4:00 p.m.
- Friday, May 7 at the Mayo Clinic's Lipps Atrium (subway level near the grand piano) at 12:00 noon,
- Meadow Lakes Sr. Living, 22 45th Ave. NW (just west of West Circle Dr. and 2nd St. intersection) at 2:00.
The handbell teams have openings for ringers for
the spring semester.
RAACHE Youth Handbells will continue with two handbell teams for the
spring 2010 school year. Practices are Tuesday afternoons at Calvary
E. Free Church, 55th St. NW, Rochester. Practice times: Junior team,
1:30 - 2:45 and Senior Team, 3:00 - 4:30. Spring practice dates are
January 12 through May 4. We will have a spring concert following the
May 4th practice -- details to follow. Registration must be done directly be contacting one of the directors: Karen Buchs or Kathy Lytle. Send an email to RAACHE and it will be forwarded!
Are you wondering about handbells? Feel free to call a director, or plan to visit us on any Tuesday afternoon! Or, read the following...
PLEASE JOIN the RINGERS FOR OUR CHRISTMAS CONCERT ON SUNDAY, DEC. 13, 6:30 p.m. at HOMESTEAD SENIOR LIVING EVENTS ROOM. Homestead is located at the corner of 18th Ave. and 55th St. NW. The events room is just inside the main door.
Sunday, Dec. 20, 4:45 p.m. - Handbell / Caroling opportunity, Rochester Methodist Hospital: Go Christmas caroling with a handbell! Our home school families have an opportunity to bring Christmas music to those who are in the hospital at Christmastime. No ringing experience needed! Just come, ring, and sing through the halls of Methodist hospital. Music and handbells will be provided. Meet by 4:45 in the Rochester Methodist Hospital main lobby on Center Street. We will set out as a group from the lobby. We hope many families will join us to lift spirits! Remember, parking is free on Sundays. What a great way to spend the Sunday evening before Christmas!
Remember the first time caroling with the handbells?
You
are cordially invited to join the two RAACHE Youth Handbell Teams for
their
Christmas concert on Sunday, December 13, 6:30 pm at Homestead Senior
Living, 18th Ave. NW, in Rochester. This will be our only joint
concert, so please plan to attend!
The handbell teams have openings for ringers for
the spring semester,
which will begin on Tuesday, January 12 and run through May 4. RAACHE
has four and a half octaves of bells, and we would like to acquire hand
chimes to supplement the bells. Ideally, we would have 12 ringers in
each team. We began meeting on Tuesday afternoons this past September
in order to avoid conflicts with the choirs which meet on Thursday
afternoons. We practice at Calvary E Free Church. The senior team,
JuBell~Lante! is directed by Kathy Lytle, and the junior team,
JuBell~Ling! is under the direction of Karen Buchs
(whapolmoo@gmail.com).
For more information, feel free to contact
either Kathy or Karen. We'd love to hear from you. Spring
registration deadline will be Friday, Dec. 18.
Why ring handbells? Since we 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. First, a young lady named Julia was asked to describe an idea or experience that was intellectually exciting, and tell why. She 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."
The other application was written by John, who was asked to evaluate a risk he had taken in his life. He responded in part as follows: "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!
Why ring handbells? Since we 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. First, a young lady named Julia was asked to describe an idea or experience that was intellectually exciting, and tell why. She 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."
The other application was written by John, who was asked to evaluate a risk he had taken in his life. He responded in part as follows: "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!