Classes and Reading Sessions

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FRIDAY MORNING CLASSES AND READING SESSIONS

Reading Session – Advent/Christmas L 3-6
Kipp Willnauer
Enjoy new masterworks and old favorites for the upcoming winter season. Music will be available for purchase from an HIC vendor following the session.

Reading Session – Advent/Christmas L1-2
Janet Carter
Enjoy new masterworks and old favorites for the upcoming winter season. Music will be available for purchase from an HIC vendor following the session.

Beginning Weaving
Beth Ann Edwards
Tackle those nasty accidentals and multiple-bell passages by learning and mastering the three-bell weave! Bring your gloves, questions about massed and divisional music, and leave with the ability to easily play even the hardest part of any piece in the battery.

Beginning Treble
Nancy and Sarah Dreier
Learn or re-learn the basics from C6 and up! Gaining confidence with shelley and 4-in-hand ringing can enhance the musical result for your choir, and can make you a more versatile ringer. Arrive with gloves and leave with dazzling treble skill!

Beginning Bass
Daniel Bogle
Learn and master safe techniques for lifting, ringing, damping, and putting down bass handbells. For the purpose of this class, “bass bells” refer to instruments below C4. Bring your gloves and leave with the confidence to sling those buckets!

Ensemble Skills 1
Cheri Leigh
Learn tips and tricks for ringing a full complement of bells with less than a full choir. Ensemble ringing can be a special, difficult, challenging, diverting, and musically satisfying experience. Learn from one who has extensive experience in ensemble ringing and bring your ideas and questions.

Auditions – Boon or Bane?
Nancy Youngman
When auditioning your ensemble, it is possible to foresee great new advancements, and terrible consequences. Talk through ideas and learn from past successes with a director of an auditioned handbell choir who also works in church and school settings. Bring questions, concerns, suggestions, successes, tales of woe, and be ready for a lively discussion.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON CLASSES AND READING SESSIONS

Reading Session – Lent/Easter L 3-6
Sharon Schmidt
Enjoy new masterworks and old favorites for the upcoming spring season. Music will be available for purchase from an HIC vendor following the session.

Reading Session – Lent/Easter L 1-2
Sharon Schmidt
Enjoy new masterworks and old favorites for the upcoming spring season. Music will be available for purchase from an HIC vendor following the session.

Bell Trees
Nancy and Sarah Dreier
Learn techniques for assembling and ringing bell trees. Several musical examples will be shown, and several pieces will be used in demonstration. These will be available for purchase from an HIC member.

Stopped Techniques
Pat Latshaw
Pluck, mart, mallet, thumb damp, hand damp? How, why, when, where, and why you should become a master of every stopped sound for handbells as presented by a Rezound! master teacher.

From C to C – Skills Toolkit for C5 to C7
Kristin Kalitowski-Kowal
Ring healthy with aural and visual factors beneficial to ringer and listener. Explore ringing skills tools such as multiple bell techniques, malleting, and damping, which will augment the battery/treble ringer’s skill set, increase your ingenuity, and leave low bass bell ringers in awe!

Ringing More Musically
Ed Rollins
Conductors often ask for things, and ringers often try to deliver. Learn several tried and true methods for making the music come alive for your audience and your musicians. Bring gloves and leave with dozens of ideas to turn your next performance into your best performance.

The Difference Between a Good Ringer and a Great Ringer is a PENCIL!
Lori Fenton
Mark it! How many directors have said it, and how many ringers have done it? Has it made a difference? Perhaps we need to have a codified way to mark handbell music that is transferable from person to person and piece to piece. Learn a system of marking bell changes, choreography, and more that will change your approach to a handbell rehearsal.

SATURDAY MORNING CLASSES AND READING SESSIONS

Reading Session – Original Compositions L 3-6
Ed Rollins
Enjoy new masterworks and old favorites for the upcoming season. Music will be available for purchase from an HIC vendor following the session.

Reading Session – Original Compositions L 1-2
Beth Ann Edwards
Enjoy new masterworks and old favorites for the upcoming season. Music will be available for purchase from an HIC vendor following the session.

Ensemble Skills 2
Sharon Schmidt
Take the next step in ensemble ringing with hands-on experience in weaving, displacement, passing to your neighbor and problem solving. We’ll also talk about adapting other music for ensembles, assigning, and polishing your performance. Prerequisite: Beginning Ensemble Class or experience with assignments of 3 or more bells requiring table damping.

Know Thyself!
Lori Fenton
Learn to use a personality framework called “The Four Tendencies” to know yourself better and to be more productive, effectively develop habits etc. It can also be helpful to understand the tendency of those around you so you can effectively communicate with and motivate them.

Advanced Treble
Nancy and Sarah Dreier
Ringers who attend this class should already be confident with shelley and 4-i-h, and be ready to try 6-i-h, traveling 4-i-h, and advanced assignment techniques to enhance musical performance and accuracy in the upper 5th, 6th, and 7th octaves. Bring your gloves and leave ready to be a Raleigh Ringer.

Maori Sticks 1
Janet Carter
These fun rhythm games from New Zealand are great for developing co-ordination, co-operation, memory skills, and the ability to internalize the beat. You will learn patterns and ideas, and take home suggestions for making and using your own sticks. You may wish to bring something to cover your legs and must be able to sit on the floor to play. Observers are welcome.

Music Theory
Nancy Youngman
Music Theory is the study of how to make your ear “see the music,” and your eye “hear the music.” Attendees who select this class will be sent an interest and experience poll so the session can be tailored to those present. We might learn basic rhythms, and we might calculate a matrix – it’s all designed for YOU!

SATURDAY AFTERNOON CLASSES AND READING SESSIONS

Reading Session – 2-3 Octave Music ONLY
Patrick Gagnon
Enjoy new masterworks and old favorites for the upcoming season. Music will be available for purchase from an HIC vendor following the session.

Reading Session – Behnke, Delancy, Guebert, Hanson
Lauran Delancy
Enjoy new masterworks and old favorites from our Area 8 clinicians. Music will be available for purchase from an HIC vendor following the session.

Resonating Online
Laura Kopff
Go beyond Facebook and Twitter! Learn new tactics to get the word out to the world about your awesome handbell program. Bring an internet connected device so you can practice what is preached by our Area 8 Communications guru!

Maori Sticks 2
Janet Carter
We will quickly review Maori Sticks 1 before moving to different games. You may wish to bring something to cover your legs and must be able to sit on the floor to play. Observers are welcome. Prerequisite: Maori Sticks 1

Handbells in Worship
Ed Rollins
When we worship, we express reverence and adoration, we pray and we listen, we learn, we give, and we hopefully go out and tell others. Find new and creative, as well as tried and true ways to make handbells an important part of a worship experience.

Advanced Bass
Daniel Bogle
Ringers who attend this class should feel confident playing instruments C3-B3, and be interested in techniques for improving the visual presentation, musical success, and overall confidence of the “heavy metal” section. Bring your gloves and any bell you might have in the lower 6th or 7th octave.

Sight Reading Tips and Tools
Christie White
Is there a groan in the rehearsal when a new piece of music is being distributed? Turn that despair or panic into a more successful experience by taking a couple of minutes to figure out the puzzle. Developing a simple routine to approach a new piece, for both the conductor and the ringers, will help in learning pieces more easily and faster, and maybe replace that groan with a “““yeah!”””