From High Notes to Handbells: Playing the Tunes

Susan Garton lives in a two-bedroom apartment at Masonic Village at Sewickley. One bedroom is for her; the other bedroom is for her bells, arranged on a 9-foot table next to a keyboard and a computer.

Susan has been a professional handbell soloist long before she found a home for herself and her bells at Masonic Village.

A former nurse practitioner with the Grove City Area School District in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, after retiring in 1992, Susan started her career in handbells. While a longtime resident of Slippery Rock, she was a member of the Celebration Ringers, a community ensemble, and the East Main Presbyterian Church bell choir.

Susan is currently the director of the Village Handbells, a bell choir at Masonic Village at Sewickley. She also performs at church services for residents.

“It’s been my life for a long time,” Susan said. “I have chimes, too, but I mostly use handbells. I just love making music. It’s such a delight. When you begin working on a piece, it doesn’t sound like much, but when you get it polished, it’s really exciting to end up with a good piece of music.”

What’s even more remarkable than her accomplishments is the fact that she has achieved them with limited vision due to an automobile accident 30 years ago. She lost her right eye, and her left eye was damaged but is stable today.

“I used to play in a bell choir, and that was very difficult because you need to look at the music,” she said. “I had to mark the music with highlighters because I couldn’t see the notes. For solo music, you can memorize the music. Once I memorize it, I don’t need the actual music anymore.”

Susan also places colored tape over some of the bells to mark the notes. “I can’t read them, but I know that my C [note] is green, and my F is red,” she said. “I’ve made adjustments to adapt to the lower vision.”

Susan has been very active in the handbell world nationally as both a soloist and a clinician. Prior to COVID-19, she typically performed up to 60 handbell concerts a year throughout the country.

She has been a featured performer at concert series throughout the United States, including Handbell Musicians of America events in Orlando, San Francisco, Nashville and Dallas. She was a member of the 2003 Dream Team quartet that performed and taught at the Solo-Ensemble Extravaganza in Colorado Springs. She also worked with a handbell choir in Kiev, Ukraine, while presenting concerts in Kiev and Presov, Slovakia. Fifteen of her handbell solo arrangements have been published.

“There is a lot of music available for handbell choirs, solo ringers and ensembles, like quartets and trios,” she said. “It’s not a big market, but big enough that there are quite a few publishers.”

Susan’s repertoire includes a wide variety of sacred, secular and classical music, and each performance is customized to fit the occasion. “I like to play music that people are familiar with,” she said. “There are no words, so they can hum along or supply the words.”

Ringing Beginnings

Susan moved with her family to Pennsylvania from Iowa in 1978, and the church she joined had an opening in its bell choir. The director asked if she wanted to join, and she agreed. “It’s easy to learn, and I had a good choir director,” she said.

In 1998, impressed with her talent, the director asked Sue to do “solo ringing,” which involved performing by herself with a piano accompaniment.

“I would borrow the church’s bells and play three or four times a year in church because I was still working full-time,” she said. “When I retired, my son suggested that I get my own set of bells and get serious about it.”

A set of handbells is not cheap, costing upwards of $15,000, and not including other necessary equipment, such as foam pads, tables and mallets to play with. “As you go along, you need a lot more [equipment],” Susan said. Thirteen bells make up an “octave.” Susan has four octaves. Each bell is its own note. The bells are arranged on the table like a piano keyboard.

“It’s like playing the piano, but instead of fingers, I have to pick up a bell and ring it,” Susan explained. “It’s a very visual art form.”

Susan has always had a love for music. Growing up, she was a singer and played piano and flute. She practices her handbells a couple of hours each day.

The Village Handbells currently practice once a week, with everyone wearing masks and socially distancing. They look forward to broadcasting concerts and, eventually, playing live again.

Susan has lived at Masonic Village at Sewickley for about three years. She has three sons, one of whom lives locally in Pittsburgh. She enjoys not having to cook or go outside unless she wants to, and is grateful to have her handbells to keep her engaged and happy.

“It has been a great thing for me to have,” she said. “When my husband died in 2006, I had a life of my own. It would have been pretty awful without the bells.

“I’m 85 years old, and I’ve been very fortunate. I have good health and am so pleased that I can actively perform at my age. I have a good friend in California who is also a handbell soloist. She is 10 years younger than I am. Her husband always asks her ‘when are you going to quit?’ She said, ‘I’ll quit when Sue quits.’ So, we’re both still going. I’ll do it for as long as I can.”