Ringing in the season: St. Andrew Mission Bells prepare for holidays

If bells have a season, it may be winter, specifically the days leading to Christmas.

This season, one of Cape Girardeau's newest handbell choirs, the St. Andrew Mission Bells, will celebrate the holiday along with its own one-year anniversary. The group formed in the summer of 2007 but performed its first concert in December.

John K. Holcomb, 76, joined because he always wanted to play an instrument.

"I never learned to read music, but I can count," he said. This year, he and 15 others will make a series of appearances, playing everything from a single song, "Sent Forth by God's Blessing," at St. Andrew's Thanksgiving Eve service to a 30-minute concert for a private party in Perryville, Mo., to a joint concert Dec. 13 -- billed as a "mass ringing" -- with the St. Paul Joyful Ringers and Junior Handchimes choirs, at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Jackson.

Mission Bells director Pat Palisch organized the mass ringing with her son, who directs the St. Paul group.

She said her choir has come a long way since they had to practice on bells borrowed from the First Presbyterian Church. Now the Mission Bells has its own set, valued at $15,000. In October, Palisch and her musicians provided the music for a First Presbyterian service to thank that congregation for its generosity.

Throughout history, bells have been used to herald great and small events, from wars to weddings and from the end of a life to the beginning of some church services. Every day bells can provice a summons for dinner, announce the arrival of a shop's customer, the need for a nurse at a sickbed or the simple passage of time. In the world of fantasy, a bell signals an angel who has earned wings or Tinkerbell's presence.

At Monday's two-hour rehearsal, Palisch helped her ringers keep time. Her hands acted as batons. She pumped her arms up and down, sometimes snapping her fingers or clapping her hands or slapping her thigh during a complicated passage, stamping her foot for effect.

Quivering hands made the small bells tinkle. Depending on the force of movement of a hand and the dip and rise of each bell, the sound was blunt or crisp or muted or mellow.

The only voice was the director's metronomic repetition of words.

"One and TWO and three and FOUR," Palisch called out, varying the emphasis on her words to match the rhythm of each song. Sometimes she sang the numbers or dissolved into a "BUM pah, BUM pah, BUM!"

Or she halted a song to gently but swiftly critique a single bell ringer.

"She makes rehearsal fun," said Elizabeth Ward, 15.

Carol Miller said she was thrilled to return to bell ringing. She'd belonged to another church's bell choir before joining St. Andrews 18 years ago.

"I love the bells," she said, though at 71, she uses her walker as a makeshift chair, standing only for public appearances.

Ward joined the choir for one reason.

"I love the 'Carol of the Bells.' It's my favorite Christmas song, like with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra," she said.

Other ringers have familiar faces: Cape Girardeau Library director Betty Martin, whose husband, the Rev. Mark Martin, is St. Andrew's young pastor; and Tim Morgan, director of inspections for the city of Cape Girardeau, are among the ringers.

Though Palisch keeps her choir fairly focused, they are comfortable enough to call out questions during breaks in the music, or dissolve into giggles rather than grumbles when a piece goes awry.

They briskly snap the bells forward for the first notes of "Jolly Old St. Nick," quickly dampening the sound between verses. The sound can be stilled by setting the bell's edge quickly on a cloth-covered foam pad or tapping it briskly just below a shoulder.

By 7:20 p.m., the giggles have evaporated into a pleasant concentration, the faces of the ringers watching each page, their bodies focused on moving each wrist with precision to ring a bell or use small mallets to change the sounds. Palisch's voice has fallen to half-audible stage whisper. During concerts, the ringers will rely on her hand signals alone.

"We are not after perfection," Palisch said. "We are after contributing to the service in our own way."

St. Andrew Mission Bells will perform at a 6:30 service Nov. 26 at St. Andrew, 804 N. Cape Rock Drive; at 5 p.m. Dec. 13 at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 223 West Adams St. in Jackson; at 1 p.m. Dec. 20 at the Glenn House, 325 S. Spanish St.; and for the 11 p.m. Christmas Eve service at St. Andrew.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

388-3646

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St. Andrew Mission Bells

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