Stop! Before you read this review, listen to the above video straight through. I want you to have the same experience I had first listening to this piece.

While I was studying my music for the College Ring-In, I discovered that Lorenz had posted all of their 2019 SoundForth Handbell pieces on YouTube. So I of course went to their YouTube playlist, and let YouTube play through their new pieces as I was working around the house. It was mostly their usual collection of church hymn arrangements. Then this came on and stopped me dead in my tracks.

First the piece starts with an open fifth groove in the chimes. Not a sound I’m use to on handbells, but I can dig it. It makes you think what’s coming next is a jazzy, fun piece.

Four bars later, a cow bell comes in, laying down a four-on-the-floor rhythm along with an alto saxophone solo. Usually I think of cowbell as a handbell parody instrument, so now I’m thinking, is this going to be a parody of some handbell piece? Plus, who writes for saxophone and handbells?! The only time I have heard that is a Ron Mallory jazz tune on the Bells of the Sound jazz CD. This leaves me even more confused.

This is of course when I turn and look at the title of the video, “How Sweet the Sound”, which does nothing to tell me where this is headed.

Four bars later, the handbells come in, playing a lovely, sweet, traditional setting of “Amazing Grace”. By this point I am fully engrossed in this piece. Is this a joke?! Did Jason really write this?! Why haven’t I stopped this yet?!

The cowbell and open fifth chime grove continue on, relentlessly. I cycle through a host of emotions. At first I’m confused and concerned, but they continue on. Then I deal with my confusion by thinking it’s humorous, like the chimes and cowbell are just playing with me. I wait for them to break and tell me this whole thing is a joke.

They continue onward.

<beat….beat….beat….beat…>

I grow anxious, not sure how to feel.

<beat….beat….beat….beat….>

Without the usual clues about major or minor in the open fifth pattern, my brain can’t tell what it is suppose to think.

<beat….beat….beat….beat….>

Then the saxophone joins the handbells, and they grove, playing a variation on “Amazing Grace” while the chimes and cowbell continue on. Now that the handbells are acknowledging that this is, indeed, not your standard arrangement of “Amazing Grace”, I find myself relaxing, almost resigning to let the music take me where it will.

Then the treble bells take over the cowbell rhythm, and the bass bells have their moment in the spotlight. Except now the bass bells are throwing a D flat into the melody, just daring me to call them out on it. But the four-on-the-floor beat and chime groove continue on, unceasing.

<beat….beat….beat….beat….>

I am now having that feeling you have during a staring contest, after the initial laughter, after the part where you take it seriously, after that moment when you return to laughter to try and end the match peacefully, in the moment when you realize the other person isn’t going to break and they get this grin on their face and you internally start freaking out, unsure of how to end this while maintaining your composure. That is what this arrangement is doing to me.

It’s staring me right in the face,

<beat….beat….beat….beat….>

daring me to look away.

<beat….beat….beat….beat….>

Then the cowbell comes back in and the saxophone and bells return to their familiar variations on “Amazing Grace” and this sense of relief and resignation and joy washes over me and I just let the groove take over. I am fully invested in what the saxophone and bells are selling me and loving every beat of it. I have been through the desert and now the promise land awaits. I am on my feet shouting for joy. The bells ends on an open fifth, still not telling me how to feel, except for the saxophone joyously dancing upward.

Somehow I am a believer now. In what I am unsure, but I believe in something! Hallelujah!

To be honest, I have never in my handbell career felt so many different emotions in less than 4 minutes. Every time I listen to this piece I fall in love with it more. It has been lodged in my head for two weeks now with no sign of ever leaving. I thought maybe these feelings were just me, but at College Ring-In I played this piece for many of the participants, and they all went through the same range of emotions.

I asked Jason why he wrote this piece, and he said that his editor had asked for an arrangement of Amazing Grace, so this is what he came up with. Jason says “I figure it’ll either be a piece of mine everyone loves, or the piece that causes everyone to start wondering where my sanity ran off to”.

There have been thousands of arrangements of “Amazing Grace” done by thousands of composers. But none have so brazenly written something so intriguing and confusing, then stared me down for four verses, daring me to try and turn away. I very seriously want to put this on our spring concert, just so that our audiences can have the same flood of emotions. If you do put “How Sweet the Sound” on your program, let me know! I want to know how your audiences react!