So last night we had yet another person audition for the Circle City Ringers. She’s an experienced ringer who was sight-reading treble parts as strong as anyone else in the group, including those who’d played the songs before. Four-in-hand and shelley-ringing were second nature to her and she’s so in love with handbells that she’s perfectly willing to drive an hour each way to be in a group like ours. How cool is THAT?

That makes two new ringers in our group since Christmas, bringing our total number of regular members to 12! The handbells that we borrow and use are 4-1/2 octaves (4 octaves in the bass and 5 octaves in the treble, so G3 to C8) and 12 is a perfect number of people to cover those. No more having treble ringer 4-in-hand C-D-E-F and G-A-B-C. Now they can shelley the octaves and we can play MUCH better and much better music.

Last night was really encouraging. Our group is really just 2 years old now and last night we sight-read songs like “Fantasy on King’s Weston” by Fred Gramann and “Rondo Passacaglia” by Cynthia Dobrinski and actually got them, if not concert ready, then ready to make better music out of them in preparation for a concert. It was so exciting last night to work those up in about a half-hour apiece and see them improve so much. It’s a sign of great things to come.

[tags]handbells, circle city ringers, music[/tags]