Carnivale
The first rule of "Carnivale" is for everyone - ringers, director, audience - to have fun! The piece came to be after the composer was issued a challenge in the summer of 2006 to write something that was pure fun. The piece was conceived as a relentless romp that's the embodiment of every fantastic circus, fair, and carnival you've ever been to rolled into one.
Percussion is used at key points throughout the piece. While the piece does not necessarily lose anything by not including it, it gains much more with the addition of these seven instruments: slapstick, ratchet, slide whistle, cuckoo bird whistle, pop gun, siren whistle, and clown horn. Rather than assign one player to be the percussionist, it is advised that the instruments be spread out among the ringers, to have them played from different physical locations. Because most ringers have a bit of "clown" in them, this piece was written with a bit of "clowning around" built in. So have fun with it and bring out the grins in your audience! Written in G Major, measures total 78.