suggestions for singing bell technique

[Jim-Bob]

Hello, everyone!

We're attending the NC Baptist Handbell Festival at the end of February and one of the Festival pieces we're ringing calls for the use of the Singing Bell technique on bells from E3-F5.  We've got the technique down for everything from G3-F5, but our 5th octave of bells are aluminum, and that technique does NOT work on aluminum bells with solid oak dowels.  There's way too much 'oak rubbing on aluminum' sound.  Does anyone have any suggestions of anything that we could try?  It's a cool technique that I'd really like to make work for the aluminum bells. Right now we're doing soft continual malleting to approach the 'drone' of the Singing Bell.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have!
Jim Costilow
Woodhaven Baptist Church
Apex, NC

[Keith Smith]

We wrap ours in split or suede leather.

-Keith

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[Michele Sharik]

Try using the handle of the big wool mallets!

Sent from my iPhone

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[Carol Lynn Mizell]

Try dipping 1/2 of the dowel rod in Plasti-dip:

 

http://www.plastidip.com/home_solutions/Plasti_Dip

 

You will need several coats (drying an hour or so in between coats).

 

I have found that most of the "3" bells respond very favorably to the dipped end of the dowels, while some of the "4" and "5" bells respond better to the bare wood.  It depends on the combination of the particular bell and the particular ringer.

 

Carol Lynn

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[Colin Walker]

I concur with this suggestion -- the handle of any large mallet (Q-tip, yellow, or blue) should work.  The Q-tip mallet handle made either the C2 or G1 sing quite nicely at the Area 10 conference this past June.  On the aluminums, you may need to have someone else hold the bell while you stir, though.  Above B3 may be doable by one ringer with long arms, but may get uncomfortable after a while.

Colin