The ringing sound of sleigh bells is all too familiar around this time of the year. It’s the official siren signaling in the winter season. While a well-known signature staple on sleighs, Santa suits and reindeer, jingle bells haven’t always been associated with Christmas. They do much more than just ring in holiday cheer.
1. Sleigh bells or jingles bells are a type of bell that produces a distinctive jingle sound. They are in the percussion family of instruments.
2. The bells are made from sheet metal bent into a spherical shape with a small ball bearing or short metal rod placed inside to create the jingle sound.
3. Small bells were known in ancient times. In Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt they were commonly suspended from the trappings of horses, mules, and camels.
4. Centuries ago, sleigh bells were fastened to horses to signal the approach of someone important or to warn pedestrians of an approaching vehicle. Sleighs were unable to stop quickly enough so they needed a warning sound.
5. William Barton opened the first US sleigh bell company in East Hampton, Connecticut in 1810. East Hampton eventually became known as “Belltown” because it produced so many bells.
6. Sleigh bells, or jingles, are rarely used to produce specific pitches. Mozart, however, prescribed this in the third of his Three German Dances K605.
7. The song Jingle Bells, also known as “One Horse Open Sleigh,” is one of the most popular and most recorded songs on Earth. It was written in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont and was originally meant for Thanksgiving.
8. Sleigh bells were one of the first instruments played in space. In 1965, Gemini 6 astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra, smuggled bells and a harmonica onto their spacecraft and played Jingle Bells for mission control as a light-hearted holiday joke.
9. The affluent ornamentally wore bells as a symbol of wealth and status.
10. In old Pagan beliefs, jingle bells are used to ward off bad luck, diseases, and evil spirits. Today, some motorcyclists strap small bells to their handlebars to ward off road demons.
Headline image credit: Sleigh Bells. Photo by Richard Wheeler. CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
The post 10 fun facts about sleigh bells appeared first on OUPblog.
By Iain Mackinlay
Christmas is the busiest time of year for the Oxford University Press Music Hire Library. With everyone wanting to include festive music in their December concerts the three Library worker elves are kept scurrying around the mile-long stretch of music shelves from September to December, busily packing up orders in time for Christmas concert rehearsals.
Music Hire Library Team: They’ve gone crazy from all the Christmas preparation!
With the fight to be Christmas No 1 in the charts still on, we thought we’d compile our own greatest hits of Christmas 2012. So, now that the orders are all in, and parcels of carols are winging their way to choirs and orchestras around the globe, we’ve totted up the orders for our festive music. Here’s the top ten for 2012:
10. Good King Wenceslas; Reginald Jacques
From Carols for Choirs 1
9. Shepherd’s Pipe Carol; John Rutter
8. We wish you a Merry Christmas; Arthur Warrell
From Carols for Choirs 1
7. On Christmas Night; Bob Chilcott
6. The Twelve Days of Christmas; John Rutter
From Carols for Choirs 2 and 100 Carols for Choirs
Click here to view the embedded video.
5. Sans Day Carol; John Rutter
From Carols for Choirs 2 and 100 Carols for Choirs
4. Angels’ Carol; John Rutter
Click here to view the embedded video.
3. Jingle Bells; Sir David Willcocks
2. Hark! The Herald Angels sing; Mendelssohn
And….
1. O come, all ye Faithful; Sir David Willcocks
Click here to view the embedded video.
Iain Mackinlay is the Music Hire Manager at Oxford University Press. To find out more about these and other Christmas music published by OUP visit our website. Oxford Sheet Music is distributed in the US by Peters Edition.
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The post Top ten Christmas carols of 2012 appeared first on OUPblog.
JUNGLE BELLS
Super quick sketch today! Off to make merriment!
Speaking of merry, jingle on over here to see what my fellow HoHoDooDa Doodlers are doing!
Jingle Credit Card Bills
Dashing through the store,
Credit card in hand,
Heading for the toys,
Last Star Wars in land.
Knock some ladies down,
Do it with great cheer,
You snooze, you lose, you've got to cruise,
Christmas Day is near.
Ooh!
Jingle bells, credit bills,
Ca-ching-ching all the way,
O what fun it is to buy
When you don't
Really have to pay.
Jingle bells, credit bills,
Ca-ching-ching all the way,
O what fun it is to buy
When you don't
Really have to pay.
Busy weekend writing. Busy week ahead.... you guessed it, writing. My cold is gone but it woke up the asthma dragon who sleeps in the deepest lobe of my lungs, and we've been wrestling a lot. I tend to lose these battles. I've been getting my running in, but veeeeery sloooooowly because of the hacking and sputtering. I am trying to convince myself that running with a reduced flow of oxygen is a cool new conditioning technique. And I am off to the doc today to see if he can prescribe a nostrum that will put the dragon back to sleep.
I hates lung dragons. (Does anyone remember the Yosemite Sam quote?)
In much happier news, I can share the cover of my fall book with you!!
The story follows the adventure of a slave trapped in New York City in 1776 while the city is torn back and forth between Patriot and British occupations. It doesn't come out until the fall, so more details later. (Thanks to ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
perfykt for the nudge.)
Last week mousesnovel asked in response to my announcement that I left a character on the cutting room floor: Was it difficult to eliminate the character? I'm not sure how much you can tell me, if it will give spoilers, but I know I get very attached to mine.
The different parts of the writing process feel like different countries to me. The etiquette and customs of one country is extremely different from the next. In the early drafts, I include everything that falls into my head and I love it all. I could never cut out a character at that stage. When I get to later drafts, that changes. The only thing that matters is what works best for the story. if I fall in love a character and she doesn't work in the story, she's gets cut. I can always send her flowers, take her to the movies, or go out for coffee with her. But if she isn't a vital thread in the fabric of the story, out she goes.
It looks too good to be a super quick sketch!
if this is super quick, don’t slow down. -some great monkey business.