Handbells
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| Percussion instrument | |
|---|---|
| Classification | Percussion |
| Hornbostel–Sachs classification | 111.242.222 (Sets of clapper bells) |
| Inventor(s) | Robert and William Cor |
| Developed | 1696 - 1724 |
| Related instruments | |
A handbell is a bell designed to be rung by hand. To ring a handbell, a ringer grasps the bell by its slightly flexible handle - traditionally made of leather, but often now made of plastic - and moves the wrist to make the hinged clapper inside the bell strike. An individual handbell can be used simply as a signal to catch people's attention or summon them together, but handbells are generally heard in tuned sets.
The first tuned handbells were developed by brothers Robert and William Cor in Aldbourne, Wiltshire, England, between 1696 and 1724. The Cor brothers originally made latten bells for hame boxes, but for reasons unknown, they began tuning their bells more finely to have an accurate fundamental tone, and fitted them with hinged clappers that moved only in one plane.
Originally, tuned sets of handbells, such as the ones made by the Cor brothers, were used by change ringers to rehearse outside their towers. Tower bell ringers' enthusiasm for practicing the complicated algorithms of change ringing can easily exceed the neighbours' patience, so in the days before modern sound control handbells offered them a way to continue ringing without the aural assault. The handbell sets used by change ringers had the same number of bells as in the towers - generally six or 12 tuned to a diatonic scale.
Handbells were first brought to the United States from England by Margaret Shurcliff in 1902. She was presented with a set of 10 handbells in London by Arthur Hughes, the general manager of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry after completing two separate two-and-a-half-hour change ringing peals in one day.
The bells used in American handbell choirs are almost always English handbells. "English handbells" is a reference to a specific type of handbells, not to the country of origin. While some American handbell choirs do use bells made in England, the majority play bells made either by Malmark Bellcraftsmen or by Schulmerich Bells, both based in Pennsylvania.
In the United Kingdom, there is a distinction between "American handbells" and "English handbells" - "English handbells" are traditional, with leather clapper heads and handles (such as the bells Whitechapel makes), while "American handbells" use modern materials, such as plastic and rubber, to produce the same effect (such as those produced by Malmark and Schulmerich). In America, however, they are all called English handbells.
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