Choosiing bells for your group

Best hand bells for groups: a review | November 21, 2020

At this time of year, with the Christmas Concert season fast approaching, it’s a perfect opportunity to start up a bell group with your pupils.

Of course, before you begin, you will need to ensure that you have a set of bells. This review will guide you through which bells will best suit your needs and budget and where to buy them.

Types of bells

There are many different types of bells and a wide variation in quality. In addition, there are pros and cons to each different type of bell with some working much better than others; depending on the abilities of your group.

Generally, the more complicated the piece you want to play, the more bells you will need. With a set of eight bells you will be able to play a range of simple songs. With between fifteen and twenty bells you will be able to tackle a larger repertoire and include harmonies.

Below is a summary of the pros and cons of the various types of hand bell and my recommendations.

Coloured Hand Bells: Set of 8

These simple coloured bells come in a set of eight and are great while you discover the benefits of a bell group. They are inexpensive and appealing. However, if you purchase bells like these, I would advise that you buy a set that includes a white one (in some sets, two red bells - a high and a low - are provided) because having two red bells that play different pitches can cause some confusion.

Pros:

Cons:

Combi/Button Press Bells: Set of 8

These are in essence the same as the simple bells above but they can also be played by pressing the top of the bell as well as by holding and moving the bell. The ability to just sound the bell with a button press widens the range of physical abilities that can take part in your group. The bell doesn’t have to be gripped so it’s more accessible for more children.

As above, it is preferable to purchase a set that includes a white bell.

Pros:

Cons:

Button Press/Desk Bells: Set of 8

These are essentially the same as the Button Press Bells above but they do not have a handle. Losing the handle means that it’s easier for the players to make contact with the button press and the lower centre of gravity makes them more stable on a table or desk.

Again, don't forget to check that a white bell comes as part of the set.

Pros:

Cons:

Hand Chime Bells: Set of 15

These hand chimes are ideal if the children you will be working with are aged seven years and above and are physically able to sound them (for more advice on this see the free sample of my therapeutic bell intervention).

These chimes are my favourite bell type and the ones I use most. They come as a set of fifteen bells but more can be added if you go on to try more complicated pieces.

However, they're not the cheapest - costing between £450 and £500 - but are well worth the expense in terms of quality and the range of songs they can accommodate. Bell groups will often upgrade to these once the group has become established and the players are feeling more confident.

Pros:

Cons:

Gold Chromatic Bells: Set of 20

These come in a set of twenty and they are lovely bells. I recommend these if you don't have the budget for a set of hand chimes but would like to play some of the more advanced pieces. They are very similar to the coloured hand bells but, as well as having a slightly sweeter tone, they look much more grown up and this can be popular with the children.

Pros:

Cons:

Coloured Hand Chime Bells: Set of 8

These bells are similar to the Hand Chime Bells above; however, they come as a set of 8.

Please note, there is no white bell option here. Fortunately it is quite easy to cover the red band on the handle of the second red chime with white tape.

Pros:

Cons:

I do hope you will have a look at my Therapeutic Bell Intervention where I go through choosing bells in more detail, with videos and demonstrations of how they play. All of the bells listed here will work well with the course. Most of the songs included in the course use 8 bells but there are several that require a set of at least 15. If you're unsure which bells would suit you best, please email me with details of your group and I can advise.

Whether or not you decide to follow one of my courses, I hope you do go ahead and start a bell group with your children, it really is a fun and rewarding experience for them.

How did you get those children to do that?!

Unlikely allies | August 19, 2020

"How did you get those children to do that?!"

This is something I hear quite a lot when my music groups perform at a Christmas or school Concert. There’s disbelief that “those children” can behave well enough to do something that many of us remember as a normal - if daunting - part of school and childhood.

It’s funny really, because while playing music as part of a school concert is undoubtedly a fantastic occasion to be celebrated; in terms of the therapeutic process for the groups I work with, it’s nowhere near as important as the journey they have taken to get there.

It makes me think about why it seems so hard for “those children” to find the kind of opportunities to shine and be applauded that are given to many in mainstream education.

A significant factor is that some children can find it very difficult to regulate their emotions in a formal classroom setting. They often have vulnerabilities that either lead them to ‘act out’ through disruptive behaviour or recede into shyness, anxiety or lack of confidence. However, when they are given some time in a smaller group with a less formal environment and provided with an activity by a trusted adult who promotes cooperation and empathy, the same children can behave very differently. In a therapeutic environment - structured enough to provide boundaries but without the necessary strictures of formal education - children can find a safe place to practice new emotional and cognitive skills.

Often, when forming music groups, I have observed this happening through the process itself and through the creation of bonds between the children who have to rely upon and trust each other in their work towards a performance.

To give some context, the therapeutic bell group is an intervention delivered over a number of short sessions where small groups of children are shown how to use hand bells together to play pieces of music. They each have just a couple of bells to chime and hence a limited number of notes to play from the song. This means they have to cooperate and coordinate as a group to produce music. They work together to learn several pieces, a number of which they will play at a performance for a significant event in the school or community.

I’d like to share the story of a relationship that formed between two unlikely allies in one of my bell groups to illustrate how the therapeutic environment can be the key to behaviour change. Of course, a number of the details have been changed to preserve confidentiality; including names.

Heidi

Heidi, aged 10, was a very shy and insecure child with low self-confidence. Her initial reaction to being chosen for the bell group was to say “I won’t be able to do it!”. Heidi’s peers tended to overlook her and she was generally ignored and lonely in the class. In the bell group, her lack of confidence led to nervousness and this impacted on her dexterity - so she was likely to stumble over notes and I was initially worried that this risked further alienation.

To start with, the other members of the group largely ignored Heidi. However, from session four, the boy who stood next to her, started to get motivated and wanted to hear the music played through. He realised the best way to achieve this, was to try and get Heidi up to scratch! He began whispering to her and prompting when to come in and which bell to use.

As this relationship progressed, Heidi’s confidence improved and it was clear that an attachment between the two was developing. In turn, Heidi’s inclusion in the group also became established. I noticed that by the end of session 5, she was also being included in the conversations that usually take place between group members as they chat about how things went and plans for the performance.

I could almost feel the positive neuro-chemicals being released; not just in Heidi’s brain but the group as a whole as their empathy flourished!

Jamie

Jamie was 9 years old and considered to be very challenging by the staff in the school. He had been assessed as having a low IQ and his academic performance reflected this. Jamie presented as not caring about anything with no fear for any consequences of punishment. He had a reputation for ‘hardness’ among the other children, was often in fights and renowned as the only child who had ever told the Head Teacher to ‘f*** off’! The first thing he said in the group was: “This is stupid!”.

Jamie was a very grudging participant. He would pause before his notes and then aggressively sound the bells, with almost a punching movement. He made it very clear that he had much better things to be doing!

However, by the fourth session Jamie’s engagement had improved dramatically. He was starting to enjoy the fact that tunes were beginning to be played. He was now concentrating, waiting for his turn, treating the chimes with a bit more care and getting disappointed when the flow of the music was interrupted by any mistakes.

It was at this point he decided that the girl next to him needed a bit of help and started to whisper to her whenever her notes came up. Without knowing it, Jamie had turned a key and opened a door for both Heidi and himself.

I’ve regularly seen things like this happen as a result of the therapeutic processes that flow from forming and developing music groups; both for me and the staff in schools who I’ve helped to form their own groups. Relationships develop and connections are made that are not just supported by making music together but are, in fact, necessary for the music to be produced at all.

So, while this may just seem to be a little story about how two children were able to have a lovely positive influence over each other, I believe experiences like these can accumulate to build and reinforce resilience in children. I’m not saying that Heidi and Jamie became best friends and all their worries were instantly fixed, but they did have a different more positive experience of what it was like to be at school. One experienced what it was like to be a confident and included member of a group and the other what it was like to be the one that gets the round of applause at the school concert, rather than the one that’s stuck at the back, out of sight ‘in case he kicks off”.

And, both of them experienced success where both of them had expected to fail.

I've been framed!

Course creation: Part 2 | August 6, 2020

Have you ever regretted starting something?

In a previous post I talked about some of the challenges I faced, once I decided to take the plunge and create my own online course to show non-musicians how to use music therapeutically with children. It’s fair to say I underestimated how much of a learning curve I was on. Case in point, making videos!

Sooo much harder than I thought. It turns out that getting the words of a course into Google Docs is the easy bit.

To say I'm feeling out of my depth is an understatement!

What's strange, is that after completing 20 compulsory LEA online courses during lockdown, I'm now doing them voluntarily! Here we go …

Surely that's enough courses for a lifetime! Not according to my inbox which is now offering to bring me enlightenment on all kinds of weird stuff (some of which I can’t mention unless you confirm you’re over 18!)

But, it doesn't end there; write a blog, start posting on social media. Aghh…. Wow.. I just had no idea what was involved when I started this.

Still, nothing could have prepared me for shooting the videos for the course.. oh my goodness! I am not a natural. Hours and hours of trying not to stumble over my words, forgetting to press record, helicopter overhead, phone ringing, completely forgetting how to speak.

Finally, I turned to my son in desperation "Can you patch the good bits together and make it like I'm saying something that's not really stupid?".

Skip forward a couple of hours, "Hey Mum! I've found all the best bits and put them together for you". Awesome.. let me see..

School: A Place to Build Resilience

Thoughts for the summer break | August 1, 2020

It's an alarming statistic that 1 in 10 children aged 5-15 will have a mental health issue, including depression, anxiety and conduct disorder, and that 70% of these children will not receive the appropriate intervention. Most of us that work with children and young people know that getting a referral to CAMHS (Children's and Adolescent Mental Health Service) is nearly impossible. So should we be acting sooner, before the situation reaches crisis point?

We humans are really good at responding to a crisis. Faced with an emergency - a fire, a flood, famine or pandemic - we pull together and rally round. We’re not so good at the boring task of preventing the disaster in the first place. Think about climate change - all the science in the world won’t persuade most of us to do something until we’re having to take a canoe down to the shops!

Unfortunately, we can be a bit like this when it comes to addressing the causes of disruptive or worrying behaviour among children. We tend to linger on the problems, the risks and the issues. That’s why most of the research and policy effort has gone into looking at ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and providing targeted interventions once the mental illness or conduct disorder become apparent.

While these interventions are really important, building resilience is not about focussing on what is broken, it is about preparing children to cope with what's thrown at them: to deal with classroom stressors, to become good at regulating emotions, to overcome difficulties in the present and cope with challenges in the future.

Importantly, resilience isn't a personality trait or something you're born with, it's a capacity that can be developed and promoted.

In my experience, helping children and young people foster their own sense of resilience improves behaviour, mental health and well-being and prepares them to achieve their very best both now and in the future.

The great thing about resilience is that it cascades: success breeds success. The more often a child faces a challenge that stretches them within their capabilities, endures and then experiences achievement, the more likely they are to believe in themselves. Consequently, the better able they are to handle the stressors associated with learning. Professor Ann Masten writes very clearly about this in her excellent book Ordinary Magic: resilience in development which I would recommend to anybody interested in this subject.

While for many children the long summer break is a time to unwind, recharge their batteries and be refreshed for another year’s learning, for some it’s a difficult period away from their main source of trusted adult guidance in school. For many it’s even hard to get enough to eat. For these reasons and more we need to focus on building their resilience when they return to our care in September.

There's nothing interesting about asbestos

But it helped me write my own online course | July 22, 2020

I work in a primary school and like all of us, I couldn’t have been more shocked when the country went into lockdown. My last day in work was the 20th of March 2020. I drove home feeling a bit confused. I had that feeling of 'I'm on holiday' but combined with a sense of doom. For the next two weeks, I have to admit that I did almost nothing: I got up really late, watched daytime TV, dragged myself out once a day for a bit of exercise, read a book, more TV and so on.

After a couple of weeks, with the realisation that this was not going to be over anytime soon, I got the feeling that I didn’t want to waste this time. Could I come out of this and have achieved something?

During those first two weeks a decree came out from the local authority that staff had to make the most of their time by doing all 20 of the corporate online courses! All of them. Without exception.

I started fairly enthusiastically with the ones relevant to my job - nothing wrong with brushing up on 'Child Protection' and ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’. But by the time I’d trudged my way through to ‘Asbestos Awareness' I’d had enough!

Anyway, all this got me thinking that I had something worth putting in an online course. My specialism? Building resilience in children and young people using music… for non musicians!

I knew there was a market for it and I certainly had the experience and expertise: I'd trained school staff during INSET days and in the classroom, and those I had trained went on to use the programme with great success!

So, it was on a Saturday morning that I sat myself down with my laptop top and started to write…

Oh, it was painful! The ideas were all in my head but my two index fingers just weren't up to the job as far as the typing was concerned. I would focus on the keyboard so carefully, but when I looked up there were still typos, and by the time I had corrected those typos I had lost the flow. Agghh!

Okay, so I realised that there was something I needed to do before I wrote any more of my course:

Side project number 1: Learn to touch type

After the obligatory trawl through Google, Trustpilot etc, I opted for KAZ Type. This came top of all the recommendations and claimed to be able to show results in 90 minutes (and their mascot was very cute).

Skip forward a few days (yes, really, within a few days!) I was slick enough to get going. I typed up my introduction and started working through the content for each module. Woohoo! No stopping me now, I thought to myself, I’ll soon have this nailed.

Naively I just kind of supposed that once I had the words in a Google doc, the hard bit would be over. I had no idea what was to come. I hadn’t really thought about how I’d go about getting all that lovely content in front of any learners.

I had no idea idea how much hard more work would be involved. But I'll save that for the next time.

Music Therapy in Education

What is Music Therapy and how does it fit into our education system? | July 6, 2020

Often, when I introduce myself as a Music Therapist who works in schools, the reaction is “Oh that’s lovely!” shortly followed by, “er...what is that exactly?” And so I find myself having to explain both how music is used for therapy and how this fits into our education system.

Music Therapy in education is the use of music to meet the cognitive, emotional and social needs of children and young people. But more specifically, and more powerfully, music creates profound relationships that can remediate behaviours that often act as barriers to learning; be they disruptive behaviour, anxiety or disengagement.

Creating a therapeutic environment can allow troubled or anxious children to find a space between the formality of the classroom and absolute freedom of play that is structured enough to provide a meaningful learning experience while allowing the safe expression of emotion.

There's no doubt that music has the power to make a difference. Music is special in the way it connects us. It promotes effective and meaningful communication, regardless of language, intellectual ability, age or disability. Research shows that the connections made through music promote empathy, bonding, cooperation and cohesion with others.

Since I qualified a couple of decades ago, it’s been good to see that the number of Music Therapists working in educational settings has increased. Despite this, there are still not enough Music Therapists available in schools to make the kind of impact needed to change things on a large enough scale.

Following my qualification and HCPC registration as a music therapist I was lucky enough to secure a full time position for a very forward thinking Local Education Authority, one of the first in Wales to offer music therapy. Even so, there was only enough funding to employ me as their sole music therapist, meaning I had to spread myself over 121 primary, secondary and special schools across a large rural authority!

It was partly this that led me to wonder if we could find a space - somewhere in between teacher and therapist - to allow other teaching and school staff to reap some of the benefits of music. While I would never suggest that a non qualified person should attempt to undertake music therapy - it seemed to me that this should not prevent music being used by more people in education to promote and create therapeutic environments. I’ll write more in a future post on how I went about this, but now more than ever we need to do everything we can to create safe and nurturing spaces for children.

The COVID-19 pandemic has and will continue to push issues of children and young people's mental health and wellbeing to the foreground. It seems to me that music and music therapy have a special place in education and that the current need is particularly acute.

We just have to find ways to make it more accessible.