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Workshops and Massed Ringing

Schedule of Events

What's happening when! downloadable pdf file (669k)

Workshops

Clinicians Corral - bios and photos of the Ringing Link 2011 Clinicians (pdf file - 900k)

Read and Ring (2 choices)

  1. Read & Ring 1 & 2 - What's new and exciting, pardner? Come and read new level 1 & 2 music to build your library with quality seasonal, sacred and secular repertoire. Recommended for directors, beginner/intermediate ringers.
  2. Read & Ring 3 & 4 - Y'all come and read new level 3 & 4 music with an emphasis on quality seasonal, sacred and secular repertoire, as well as music with vocal, choir or instrumental lines. Recommended for directors, intermediate and advanced ringers.

Multiple-Session Ringing Skill (4 choices)

  1. Roundup Festival Choir (3 sessions) - For all you thoroughbreds, attend the Roundup Festival Choir each day in order to prepare a Level 3-4 piece of music for final performance. Strong sight-reading skills suggested. Participants are expected to purchase their own music score. Recommended for intermediate and advanced ringers.
  2. Prairie Oysters Not Your Thing? Why Not Try to Solo Ring? (2 sessions, Parts A & B) - Learn the techniques and choreography of solo ringing (Part A), with opportunity to apply these skills in suggested repertoire (Part B). Class size limited to 12 ringers. Recommended for intermediate and advanced ringers.
  3. Round Up Your Friends for Small Ensemble Ringing (2 sessions, Parts A & B) - Learn the techniques of successful ensemble ringing (Part A), with opportunity to apply these skills in suggested repertoire (Part B). Class size limited to 12 ringers. Recommended for all ringers.
  4. Corral Those Multiple Bells (2 sessions, Parts A & B) - Learn the many bell techniques that are common to each ringer (Part A), and then explore these skills in greater detail with repertoire in your particular range of bells (high/battery/bass) (Part B). Recommended for all ringers and directors.
  5. Tighten that Cinch: Advanced Solo & Small Ensemble Tutorial - Bring your own repertoire to this troubleshooting session and work through the difficult passages with a master clinician. Recommended for intermediate and advanced ringers.
  6. Plink! Plank! Plunk! - Handbells are a “percussion art form” so experience the musical artistry of a professional percussionist. Explore handbell ringing with a percussionist’s view to creating music with sensitive dynamics, phrasing and proper malleting technique. Recommended for all ringers.
  7. Giddy-up with Handchimes! - Have some fun with handchimes as you develop basic techniques and explore opportunities to use handchimes in your bell choir. Recommended for all ringers.
  8. Trick Riding for Beginner Bell Ringers - Calling all greenhorns! Learn musical vocabulary and symbols, beginner music theory, plus basic handbell techniques and handbell markings. Your director will love you for taking this class! Recommended for beginner ringers.
  9. All Cows Are Not Created Equal - Why do some bell choirs stand apart from the herd? Designed to improve performance artistry, develop your musical sensitivity to phrasing, musical balance, chord structure, visual movement and music expressiveness. Recommended for all ringers.
  10. Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall … Who’s the fairest cowpoke of them all? - Designed to improve performance presentation, this workshop is about becoming more aware of how we appear to our audience. Recommended for all ringers.
  11. Bring it on Home & Brand That Music - How many of you ringers take your music home and study it on your own? Learn how to mark your music with consistency for all ringers, resolve assignment issues, and practice that difficult counting at home in order to make the most of your valuable rehearsal time with your bell choir. Recommended for all ringers.

Directing Skills (10 choices)

  1. Breeding a New Bell Choir - Have you inherited a set of bells or handchimes at your school or church and don’t know what to do with them? Discover what is required to successfully set up a choir: recruitment, auditions (or not), beginning repertoire, basic conducting techniques, and varied techniques of handbell and handchime ringing. Recommended for new directors.
  2. Arms Up! Lasso Those Conducting Skills - Are you a new “Il Maestro” in the making? Learn the basics of conducting skills and efficient rehearsal techniques, and then practice on your fellow ringers if time permits. Recommended for beginning directors and any ringers wanting the opportunity to try conducting.
  3. Ropin’ in Advanced Conducting Skills - Want to take your conducting skills to the next level? Learn and practice creative ideas to coax the most out of your handbell choir (effective cues, expression of musical line, complex patterns and diagnostic exercises). Recommended for intermediate and advanced directors.
  4. Fertilize Your Crop of Ringers - Directors, share strategies with each other to raise the level of your ringers’ musicianship and ringing skills, including rehearsal techniques, effective communication and skill building. Recommended for all directors.
  5. Genetically Modify Music to Suit Your Herd - Frustrated when repertoire does not match the needs of your particular choir? Learn how to arrange, rearrange or adapt music or a published work to suit your particular choir. Recommended for all directors.
  6. Need to Re-seed Your Crop? - Need fresh inspiration? Explore ways to add interest to your performances through creative repertoire or creative presentations. Secular repertoire will be suggested. Recommended for all directors.
  7. Put On Your Sunday Best - Learn how to incorporate bells and/or chimes in all areas of the church community to enhance worship, and explore ways to add interest to your performances throughout the year. Sacred repertoire will be suggested. Recommended for all directors.
  8. Adjust the Stirrups for All Sizes - Help those with particular challenges express their inner beauty of spirit through music. Learn how to set up, direct, and arrange music for a special needs’ choir using both bells and handchimes. Recommended for directors and all ringers.
  9. Saddle Up Those Colts & Fillies - Develop strategies for integrating handbells into fun music making within the elementary music curriculum (K – 6) as well as developing a successful formal “Handbell Choir Program” in your elementary school. Recommended for elementary music teachers.
  10. This Little Piggy Went to Market - Want to fund an extra octave or take your bell choir to an International Symposium? Learn creative fundraising ideas, concert production basics, appealing programming and effective marketing efforts for success. Recommended for all directors and ringers.

General Interest

  1. Ride the Bio-Mechanical Bull - Through the Alexander Technique of good posture, refine one’s body map to produce efficient, graceful, coordinated, and effective movement. Recommended for all.
  2. Harnessing Your Brain - This workshop is all about the brain,how it works, left-brain/right brain, spatial and linear reasoning, focusing, and relaxing. Recommended for all.
  3. Bronze Family Feud - Teams of 4 ringers sight-read a short piece of music as many times as possible without error in 1 minute. Sounds easy, but it’s tougher than you think as both the music tempo and complexity increases and the tension builds. Yep, there’s a feud in the making (and lots of laughs). Recommended for all.
  4. The Change Ringing Trail Ride - Discover the ancient English art of change ringing as you tour the ringing chamber of Christ Church, Calgary--one of only seven bell towers in Canada. Recommended for 24 ringers without vertigo!
  5. Penning your Creative Juices: Composing & Arranging Handbell Music - Want to try composing your own music but don’t know where to begin? Come and learn the skills required and challenges faced in writing and arranging effective handbell music. Knowledge of music theory a prerequisite.
  6. Dream Catchers - You’re never too old to dream! Celebrate Alberta’s native heritage as you make your very own dream catcher. Incremental cost for supplies. Recommended for all.
  7. Whoa! A Look at the History of Handbell Ringing - Hear the history of the development of the art of English handbell ringing from our resident historian. Recommended for all.
  8. Git Yer Dancin’ Boots On! - So you think you can dance! Learn the basics of western line dancing and square dancing in preparation for our National Concert & Hoedown, and Calgary Stampede’s Rope Square. Recommended for all.
  9. Mosey on Down to the Mat - Learn breathing exercises and muscle warm-ups and cool-downs to complement handbell ringing. Wear loose clothing and bring a mat if you have one. Recommended for all.
  10. Got a Lame Bell? - Learn how to doctor your breed of bell. Take a Schulmerich or Malmark bell apart and then put it back together again. Come to a fun session about bell maintenance and care … from clappers to cleansing creams. Recommended for all.

Full List of Workshops - downloadable pdf file (1Mb)

 

Massed Ringing

 

Last modified: June 10, 2011