, give a strong fundamental with very few
high partials, and weigh much less than bronze.(Fr. clochette, sonnette; Ger. Tischglocke, Handglocke; It. campanello a mano; Sp. campanilla, esquila).
A bell with a handle (shaft or loop), held in the hand for ringing. Usually it has a clapper inside and is swung to produce a sound, although it may also be held stationary and tapped with a hammer. Single handbells are used in music to provide an element of pitch, rhythm and tone-colour; from ancient times they have been used frequently in religious music because of the esoteric properties ascribed to bell sound. Handbells are mostly used in sets, which may contain about six to over 80 bells covering a range from a short melodic scale to seven chromatic octaves. There may be a slight increase in loudness towards the upper end of the range (the reverse of the pattern for carillon bells).
Western handbell music is usually performed by a ‘team’ or ‘choir’ of four to 15 ‘ringers’ (fig.1). Each ringer either holds one or two handbells in each hand or lifts the appropriate bells from a table as the notes are required. Handbell music contains both harmonic and melodic elements and reflects the fact that handbells are about the only bells that can be damped. The repertory includes both original compositions and arrangements, solo works and combinations with voices and other instruments; there is also music for two handbell choirs. Several systems of scoring handbell music exist, some influenced by the use of numbers in English Change ringing, others by the letters of tonic sol-fa notation; staff notation is most common, with the notes written an octave below sounding pitch.
The oldest extant handbells are from China, dating from about 1600 bce. Chinese writings refer to still earlier handbells, and ascribe transcendental powers to their sound. Early Chinese handbells are oval in horizontal section and usually have a concave or ‘fish-mouth’ rim (fig.2a). Around the 6th century bce the Chinese began to tune their handbells and attach them to a frame for striking (see Chimes).
In ancient India the handbell was venerated for both its sound and its appearance; for the Hindus it symbolized the ‘world lotus’, out of which issued the hosts of the created world, as sounds issue from a bell. The lotus determined its form, circular in horizontal section with sides flaring towards the rim in vertical profile (fig.2b); this proved also to be the best shape acoustically, and has been adopted for most modern handbells. The oldest extant examples are of the 5th or 6th century.
Buddhism inherited this shape of handbell, and spread its use across East Asia, and in the 6th century ce introduced it into Japan. In the 9th century handbells came to be used for accompaniment in the singing of Japanese goeika hymns. In goeika performance each singer alternately rings a rei (small handbell) and strikes a small metal disc. Both instruments have a high, indefinite pitch and add a sparkle to the vocal tone comparable to that which the Western triangle and cymbals give to Coptic plainchant. The rei is difficult to manipulate; it has a particularly long handle and is only about 5 cm in diameter (fig.2c), whereas the diameter of the average Buddhist handbell is closer to 10 cm (fig.2d). Goeika has always retained its religious nature, both in regard to repertory and to the sanctity of the bell; there are several thousand goeika societies in Japan, which hold annual conventions.
Handbells are indigenous to many parts of Africa as instruments for religious rites, signalling and musical performance. Africans use both cast and forged handbells, the latter having been more prevalent until the 20th century. The bells range in size from 10 cm to 40 cm, handle to rim, and are mostly of a flattened shape, recalling some early Chinese bell forms. In certain areas clusters of two to six or more bells are attached to a handle, and are played by tapping (see Bell (i), fig.10); these are used in ensemble music and to accompany songs and dances.
In ancient Egypt handbells were used in temple rites from the 8th century bce. Egyptian bells are datable chiefly on circumstantial evidence: on the early bells the gods are symbolized by animals (fig.2f); then under new religious influences animals gave way to flowers, the flowers to lines, and eventually, in the case of Coptic altar bells, to the Christian cross. Although small, extant examples show good castings, mostly of an ovoid shape said to be derived from the top of the canopic or funerary urn.
Christian missionaries carried handbells on their journeys from Mediterranean Africa, and made others along the way, although the latter were mostly forged and so lacked resonance. Like orchestral cowbells, they had loop rather than shaft handles and were intended to be joggled rather than swung. Their tone was suitable for funeral processions and wakes, an ancient and universal use based on the belief that the sound of blessed bells protects the souls of the dead. Cast handbells, with their more resonant tone, were made in Italy for church use from the 6th century, but did not become widespread until the 8th century or later. In general the handbell preceded the tower bell as a means of calling to divine services.
In western Europe handbells are first shown in a musical use in manuscripts of the 13th century (fig.3), about the time that small bells were first tuned in diatonic series (see Chimes). Handbells may have been used in some late medieval and early Renaissance music for singers, other instrumentalists, or both, but without notation calling for them. The were apparently played in jubilant processions, where they would have been effective because of their brilliant tone-colour; their almost permanent retention of pitch caused them to be used for retaining standards of pitch and intonation. In the 20th century the use of handbells – usually mounted on a frame and played by one person with a mallet – became quite common. (Peter Maxwell Davies’s Worldes Blis, 1966–9, employs seven pitches and Henze’s Cinque piccoli concerti, from his opera The English Cat, 1983, uses four different pitches for each of three players.)
The modern tuned English handbell was developed in the 17th century, cast of bronze with a fixed, directional clapper and leather strap handle. In some English towns it was conceived for use as a practice instrument for tower bell ringers, to rehearse the Change-ringing sequences then coming into fashion; thus, small sets were made to correspond to the bells in a specific tower. Wooden pegs, later changed to leather, were attached to the striking surface of the ball of the clapper, and springs attached to the clapper shaft kept the clapper from resting against the casting. As ringers began to realize the musical potential of handbells, semitones were added to form fully chromatic sets, enabling performers to play familiar melodies. Some extant sets were cast towards the end of the 17th century by the Cor Brothers of Aldbourne and the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.
By the middle of the 18th century, group tune ringing was a favourite diversion in England, and soon nearly every village had its band of bell ringers. Some bands, particularly in the northern counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire, rang with as many as 200 bells, many of them duplicated, and took part in annual contests. The Lancashire Ringers were some of the best, and when the American impresario P.T. Barnum heard them in the late 1840s, he arranged for them to perform in the USA. Apparently to make them appear more exotic, Barnum dubbed them Swiss Bell Ringers and dressed them in appropriate costumes; as such they became popular performers on American Chautauqua and vaudeville circuits. In 1863 these same Lancashire Ringers began an eight-year tour of Australia, with an additional tour to India.
English handbells became a permanent part of the American scene in 1902 through the auspices of Margaret Nichols of Boston. She introduced from England eight Whitechapel handbells, a set which she continued to enlarge. Within a few years, as Mrs Arthur Shurcliff, she was introducing Boston to the joys of handbell ringing with the Beacon Hill Ringers, consisting of five of her six children and several friends. They became well known for their annual Christmas carolling on Beacon Hill. The popularity of handbells spread rapidly through New England in the early 20th century, although nearly all bells had to be brought from England and were owned by families. Notable among the few early American bell makers was Rowland Mayland of Brooklyn who used the unique system of nickel-plating his bells rather than shaving metal from a casting, which is the commonly accepted tuning method.
Merle Kelly, an American who went to Japan as a Presbyterian missionary in 1957, introduced English handbells into his Kinjo University music classes. Handbell ringing spread throughout Japan primarily through Christian schools and the Japanese developed a mesmerizing combination of choreography and musical ringing which is as beautiful to watch as it is to hear.
By the beginning of the 21st century, handbell ringing outside England barely resembled that of a century ago. Sets of three to five octaves are now commonplace, and complete seven-octave sets are occasionally found. Community, church and school bell choirs often reach a highly professional degree of musical and technical proficiency. There is no single ‘correct’ way to do anything in handbell ringing. Numerous techniques have been developed to add variety of sound to straight ringing: various staccato methods, ‘wow’ effects, and so on, and ringers can become adept at controlling dynamics. Many English bell teams ring ‘off the table’, as do solo ringers primarily, while most other countries favour ringing ‘off the shoulder’.
Since
the 1970s a new industry has sprung up in the USA featuring a large array of
handbell equipment and music. Until 1955, the majority of handbells were
produced in England by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. In 1955, Petit &
Fritsen, Dutch bellfounders from 1660, began manufacturing handbells.
Schulmerich Carillons, Inc., began mass producing handbells in the USA in 1963,
and Jacob Malta, who completed the design of the Schulmerich handbell, opened
his own business, Malmark, Inc., in 1974. While bell makers in England number
their bells from the highest bell down, English handbells manufactured in the
USA are numbered from the lowest bell upwards. Because of the extreme weight of
large bronze bells, Malta patented a design for aluminium bass handbells in
1990. These bells, in the range C–f, give a strong fundamental with very few
high partials, and weigh much less than bronze.
The first International Handbell Symposium was held in Arcata, California, in 1984. Participants in these biennial symposia include the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers, founded in 1954 by the New England Guild of English Handbell Ringers (1937); the Handbell Ringers of Great Britain, founded in 1967; the Handbell Ringers of Japan (1976); Handbell Society of Australasia (1983); Korean Handbell Association (1985); and several Canadian Guilds: Alberta (1983), Ontario (1985), Saskatchewan (1986), British Columbia (1993) and Manitoba (1995).
S.B. Goslin: The A.B.C. of Musical Hand-Bell Ringing, or, the Hand-Bell Ringers' Instructor (London, 1879); ed. J.H. Hannon (Oxford, 2/1974)
S.B. Parry: The Story of Handbells: the History and Art of Handbell Ringing (Boston, 1957)
M.H. Shurcliff: ‘English Bells’, Old-Time New England, xlix (1959), 57
N.P. Tufts: The Art of Handbell Ringing (New York, 1961)
W.G. Wilson: Change Ringing: the Art and Science of Change Ringing on Church and Handbells (London, 1965/R)
P. Bedford: An Introduction to English Handbell Tune Ringing (Chelmsford, 1974)
J. Camp: Bell Ringing: Chimes, Carillons, Handbells (Newton Abbot, 1974)
N. Bullen and A.S. Hudson: Music for Handbells (Chelmsford, 1977)
D.E. Allured: Musical Excellence in Handbells (Nashville, TN, 1982)
C. Bourke: ‘The Handbells of the Early Scottish Church’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, cxiii (1983), 464–8
P. Price: Bells and Man (Oxford, 1983)
R.J. Johnston: Bell-Ringing: the English Art of Change-Ringing (Harmondsworth, 1986)
Overtones 1955–1986: Thirty-Two Years of Overtones (Dayton, OH, 1987)
J. Sanderson, ed.: Change Ringing: the History of an English Art (Cheltenham, 1987–)
D.E. Allured: Mastering Musicianship in Handbells (Nashville, TN, 1992)
M.G. Genesi: ‘Il campanello nell'iconografia sacra: reperti piacentini’, Strenna piacentina (1996), 80–89
PERCIVAL PRICE (1), JOAN SHULL (2)