How do you practice handbells at home without your own set?
Well, let me tell you. When you are a newbie to a crazy-good new group and feel the expected trepidation, you take home your music, copy it, highlight all over the copy, and get an mp3 file to listen to from the recordings guru. Then it's time to sit on the floor and practice with spoons. Currently, laid out around me on the floor, I have:
4 big spatulas
1 plastic whisk
1 plastic spoon
1 large flat cake spreader thingy
1 serving spoon
1 regular spoon
1 serving fork
1 regular fork
I then sit and listen over and over and stop and start and correct and beat these various implements on the floor and my shoulders and wave them in the air like I'm really playing. It would be a pretty strange scene to walk in on unawares.
Each of these implements represents a specific piece / instrument that I am expected to keep track of and play at just the right time... Usually at any given time I'll have 3 of the above things in my hands. No pressure, though...
Oh, and this is just one song of an approx. 20-song lineup that we're learning for April concerts. Let the peeing of the pants commence.