We had a few days to unwind at Old Orchard Beach in Maine before our final concert in Bellingham, MA. The water was tested (the ocean as well as the indoor pool), the carnival rides were ridden (mostly by Willis), and the questionable nightlife was avoided; I managed to squeeze in time for a cup of coffee with our director to ask some questions.
Kathy grew up in Bethlehem, PA with a Pennsylvania-Dutch father and a mother near the coal mines in the same state. She was first exposed to handbells and to quality church music at the age of 12 under the direction of a Westminster graduate. Through him, she heard of and pursued studies with Donald Allured at Westminster, who was "the best of the best."
When did you feel called to become a sacred musician?
Because I was raised Roman-Catholic I felt like I was going to Mass every week and saying the same prayers over and over again but I never thought about them. When I started making music in worship it was a very profound way for me to worship; I understood the Mass and what worship was. I paid more attention, and so I wanted to do that for others. Even if I didn't go into music, I wanted to help build young lives, people who were going to become doctors and lawyers. If you have an opportunity to introduce them to the power of music and how important it is, they'll gain that for the rest of their lives.
When did you begin working for Malmark?
When I rang in the choir as a student there was a Westminster alum who was a sales rep for Malmark; he would bring us to the midwest all the time, to Wisconsin, and he thought that I was a very good ringer and excited about handbells. Everyone in the choir was very close to him, he was a very enthusiastic person. He told me to call Mr. Malta to see if there was a job at Malmark, and so I did, and so I got home from bell choir tour in '85 and started June 1st. And that was that! I was a sales assistant, and in '96 I became director of sales and marketing. It took me 10 years, but I learned the whole business, as far as manufacturing; you really have to know the whole thing for service. When you're in a small business and you're on the road and there's a bell broken, there's not that many people that can help. You really have to understand the instrument, how to repair them, and how it's tuned.
When did you first meet Donald Allured?
"I first met him at commencement in 1979 I believe, and then just in classes. He taught Intro to Handbell Leadership Training, as well as Concert I."
What is taught in Handbell Leadership that is not gained from ringing in an ensemble?
What is covered in a handbell leadership course that you don't get in a normal ensemble experience?
I think that every sacred music major should have experience with handbells if they are going to work in a mainline church. It teaches more background information, how much table space you should have, about the different octaves of bells, about the equipment. In the ensemble you just ring on what I provide you - these are the tables you ring on, these are the pads you use. In class I present you with different ideas about equipment for what will work for a church program or a school program. We talk a lot about working with non-music readers and bringing together an intergenerational choir. What if you have six readers and five non-readers? How are we going to make that work, how are we going to run a rehearsal? We get through all the various ringing techniques that are out there, which we don't always use in all of our music. When you are in a choir, I just teach the techniques that are being used in the piece. In Intro to Handbell Leadership Training there is a lot more study. We talk about how to assign; we do a lot of assigning as far as the bass goes, we talk a lot about fundraising, the whole gamut.
Could you talk about Don Allured's philosophy?
Don Allured was a true technician. First of all, let's talk about assignments. He was the person who developed the three-octave inner core assignment in keyboard order progression. There are several schools of thought on assignments. His was that you take two diatonic pitches and their sharps and flats and each ringer get's to bells and it goes straight up the scale. There is a Westminster grad who is probably the second school of thought, and that's Bob Ivy. He does two diatonic pitches up to F and G5and then at A5 you're assigned A5 and A6, and then it's BC, BE, FG, and then he assigns the B6 and C7 down the octave. Don Allured and Bob Ivy used to do 10 ringers with 5, 6 and 7 octaves. I got away from that and decided that B6 and C7 should have it's own position because this is the peak of the melody ( in 3-5 octave music in C major) and needs the strength of one hand and not two.
Don's philosphy was all about technique. How the bell was handled, damping... he did not advocate martellato. I've bent on that a little bit, we don't use it as much as other choirs do, we treat it more as a dynamic marking. He was totally against that, he was interested in musicality and musicality alone. He believed you had to have flawless technique, and had no tolerance for missing and wrong notes.
My approach to handbell ringing is to treat it more like 4-part writing, like a string quartet. It used to be that the bass bells were scattered around the 10 ringers on the table - if you rang G3, probably position 2 would ring it because in G major you were the 6th and 7th scale degree and would almost never ring tonic so you could pick up the G3. With all that said, music was always a little bit thinner back then.
And he was doing a lot of Bach.
He was always doing Bach, every semester, because it was the tight ringing and the damping that would build technique. Approaching the bell choir as sections and each having it's own specific technique has created a fuller sound. I think sonority-wise, it works better to have everything in keyboard order. He put the 3-octave range in keyboard order and then scattered everything else; I advocated to have everything in keyboard order. The core of the music is written for C4-C7 and then the lower bells support what is going on, sometimes there is an extra line, and then the higher bells from C#7 to C9 (or I'll say C8 since that is what most people have) is decorative.
What other repertoire would Don choose?
He was a composer, so we did a lot of his original works. I think he chose his repertoire so that the students would learn the bell standards, but there were a lot of sacred music majors in the choir. This year we only have one sacred piece, the Ubi Caritas. There would have 4 or 5 pieces based on hymn tunes.
What do handbell directors entering the field today need to know?
They need to know how to ring, and they have to understand the instrument. Many handbell directors don't know that the bell produces two pitches, many don't even know that they're transposed and sound an octave higher than written. They have to know how to produce the sound and understand that ringing the correct note is only the beginning, for many that's the goal. The musicality begins once the tone is made; what you do with the bell after the tone is produced determines the music.
Does the instrument have a place outside the church, say, in a public education setting?
Chimes do - there are many more chime sets in the world than there are handbell sets. Chimes can be used in general music education to teach note duration and music reading. They can be used with a text, to teach the melody of a song. Many school systems have chime ensembles as an extracurricular activity. Unfortunately it's the plague of the music educator: they have no budget, and any ensemble outside of the chorus or band would be extra-curricular and they would not receive remuneration for it.
And kids are busy.
Sports are crazy. Sports rule.
If money was no object, where would you take the handbell choir?
I would start a professional touring choir that was on for 6 weeks, off for 6 weeks. We would tour around the country and go to schools. This equipment would be very difficult to fly with commercially but we'd have to do it. I would just have a really fine choir with people who loved to ring so we could expose the instrument and ring very musically.
Any particular countries you would visit?
Well, handbells are really popular in Asia, so I would probably start there, since that would be an easy acceptance.
I thought you were going to say England.
In England, they're not so popular. They were always a secular instrument, not a sacred one, and always had something to do with the local pub. You would go to Mrs. Smith's house on a Thursday night for tea and ring handbells around her dining room table. There are very few organized bell groups in England that are housed by an institution, meaning a church or a school. Most of them are community groups with small sets, maybe two octaves, who get together and ring for the fun of it. I would start in Asia, and then go on to Europe: Austria, Germany. I also think bells need dovetail on something to be recognized.
Performing with, say, an orchestra?
Or other instruments. We make these recordings, which are great, they are important, they are good for the school and everything, but I would love for the instrument to have more recognition, and one way to do that is to combine the ensemble with other instruments.
In a world without music, what profesion would you have chosen?
A lawyer. I'm a critical thinker.
Final thoughts?
I think there's something yet to come with bells. The instrument needs to collaborate with other instruments. Most community groups wouldn't be happy being an instrument in an orchestra, and I think until we take a step back we won't be able to move forward.
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Today we are back in Princeton, and tomorrow we have a day of recording. This is the last post for this blog. Thanks for reading!
Love this interview!!
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