Before I get into the list of handbell pieces I had published in 2008, a little background. My first published handbell pieces were published in 2005. Excluding a short stint in self-publishing and with an uber-small publisher that soon went belly-up, here’s the number of pieces I’ve had published each year:
2005: 2
2006: 4
2007: 11
2008: 4
2009: at least 8
Kind of a precarious drop-off from 2007 to 2008, eh? There’s a few reasons for that. By far the primary one was that there was an 8-month period in early- to mid-2007 where I submitted almost no pieces to publishers. Por que? I knew there was a chance my family and I would be moving halfway across the country (which we did), and I didn’t want have publishers accept a piece, then not be able to find me (or reject a piece and I not know that the piece was no longer under consideration). And it’s about a year from submission to publication for most publishers, the lack of submissions in 2007 is coming back to bite me in 2008. 2009 is shaping up to be back to 2007’s form, however — my best guess is I’ll have about 11 to 13 pieces published next year.
Anyway, the four pieces I had published in 2008:
“Alleluia Sotto Voce” (5 octaves): “Alleluia Sotto Voce” is written in the Taizé style: a simple melody that repeats many times with slight variations in accompaniment, creating an ethereal, meditative feeling. “Alleluia Sotto Voce” uses those musical ideas of Taizé, taking a simple 3-measure phrase and building different accompaniments and countermelodies on top of it before deconstructing it and returning to the simple, 3-measure phrase.
“Fantasie on ‘Let Us Break Bread Together’” (handbell duet): A hauntingly beautiful rendition of the favorite sacred tune.
“Let Vibrate” (2-4 octaves or small ensemble): A meditatative handbell piece that lets the bells ring from beginning to end — the bells don’t damp until the very last note. Last page gives playing instructions to perform as a handbell trio, quartet, or quintet with various levels of difficulty.
“Ten Christmas Hymn Introductions” (3-5 octaves): This collection of ten Christmas hymn introductions provides an opportunity to incorporate handbell into congregational hymn singing during the Christmas season. The collection includes 3-5 octave handbell introductions plus harmonizations for one verse of ten popular Christmas carols. The introductions are for bell choir only and the harmonizations can stand alone or augment the standard keyboard accompaniment.