Collection: Rhythm Bells

Bells for classroom rhythm work, drum circles and world music programs, from EMUS, Groove Masters Percussion, NINO and MEINL.

The collection covers two quite different families of bell, and the difference matters when you are choosing.

Jingle bells are small round bells with a loose ball inside. They give a wash of sound rather than a note, and they are the easiest instrument in any music room to play. EMUS handle sleigh bells come with thirteen and twenty-five bells, half-moon frames with six and nine, and wrist and cluster bells strap on or sit in the palm so the sound comes from movement. Jingle taps and NINO bell sticks give a single clean strike instead of a wash.

Struck metal bells are the other family. Agogo bells are two connected bells of different sizes played with a stick, giving a high and a low tone from one instrument, and in West African and Latin ensembles the bell part is what everything else locks to. GMP stocks a standard and an open-ended agogo, the African gankogui in two sizes and a smaller thumb bell. Cowbells come hand-held and mounted, from GMP and MEINL.

Also here: the EMUS Indian bell tree, a row of small bells swept with a finger for a rising shimmer.