Let me tell you a little about my group so you know where I'm coming from. My handbell choir has been around for about 6 years now. We were off to a goood start, but our director turned out to be the most stressful and unpleasurable (that's the light way of putting it!) person in the world. She drove many of our ringers away. At that time I was her assistant director. Well, the group fell apart and she eventaully quit. I turned what was left of the group into a quartet and we had fun. Well it's taken
about 3 years to fully recover from the damage she'd done, but I've finally rounded up a large enough group of people interested that I will have a decent sized choir.

After everything we've been through, I want to turn this group around and simply have fun. (One thing our previous director did was she came down very hard on the people that weren't so musically inclined. It caused them pain and that was simply not necessary....especially with a group of volunteers!!!) Anyway, my goal for this group is to have fun. And while we're at it, play at mass every once in awhile!!! If I don't have
the most successful group of ringers in the world, no worries, because that's not our goal. What I'd really like from you is ideas on how to make practice incredibly fun! Not to say that we don't have fun as it is, but suppose there are some creative and fun learning techniques or games that someone knows of and could share with me. My group is very much a beginner group...in fact I have a couple of people that don't even read music. But I wasn't about to turn anyone away. I told them the only requirement was that they needed to be able to count to nine....reading music would follow!

Last night we had a educational workshop that went very well and the group is excited which makes me excited. I am very recharged. However, I'd still like any and all suggestions about what we can do to make practice fun.

Here's something I just thought of. How about you go out to the street somewhere and just start playing in front of everybody. I think it'd be interesting to see a group of kids playing handbells in the street. Don't think I've seen that before. And they might like playing for everyday people out in just some random place. What do you think?

Can you arrange some popular music to be played by your group? What about TV themes? Clark Terry, a truly gifted jazz trumpet, did a great version of "Meet the Flinstones" is both good jazz and always cracks the audience up. That might be a good way to make practicing fun. Playing any type of music will improve the musicianship of even the less talented in your group.

In the musical Christmas movie "Scrooge", there is a scene towards the end that has bell-ringers playing in the street. They had bells on their feet too, and they start jumping up and down. It's very entertaining.

I like the idea of doing TV themes. Didn't Lucy do an episode with bell-ringers?

Also, you could try costumes. Or you could do a play or scene using bells as the voices, or tell a story with bells as the accent.

You could go to schools and get kids involved too. I took the Girl Scouts to a musical instrument demonstration and the girls got up and played the instruments. They had a blast.

You could do a School of Bell Rock, and update it to today's music.

While these are fabulous ideas, they're not quite what I'm looking for. How can I explain this better.....I want to find ways to make the boring monotonus stuff fun. Like scales, sight reading, weaving, dynamics, coordination, etc. You know, the core stuff. The stuff all the other fun stuff if based upon.

I have some ideas for concerts, and I love some of your ideas, but I want to find ways to make the everyweek practice routine interesting.

bring costumes?

face painting?

nude scales?

choir practice gone wild, the sopranos get their beads?

Musical chairs?

A beach ball?

Magic eight ball incorporated between songs?

Truth or scales?

I think the best idea is to just quit the choir and play poker...