Desk Bell Set

 

Desk bells - Tap the bells to play the song

This is an 8-note, color, desk bell set. I have several different bell sets and was looking for something new and different when I found these. I call them "tap bells", because all you have to do is tap the top, like the old-fashioned desk bells, and the tone sounds. Here is the link for this bell set that I bought on Amazon. Click here.

The Amazon description states that these bells are the correct pitch, lightweight and durable. They move through an octave, from middle C (4) to C5. Lightweight, yes. Durable, time will tell. One thing that bothered me was that when I tapped the top sometimes the sound was not as clear as at other times. If you tap it firmly, OK. I thought $40+ was a little steep, but I splurged because I have several kids that can use these.

I am revisiting this post in 2023 and have found that the price is now $32. I bought several sets of there during the pandemic. Kids had their set of bells at home and I would show the music on Zoom. It worked well. 

The colored part of the bells is made of metal. There is also a metal spring inside, but the rest of the bell is plastic. The plastic part is what makes me wonder how long they will hold up. Here is a close up of the underside of the bell.

There is a small sticker on the top of each bell. Each sticker has a number, to tell you the order for setting up the bells, and a letter to tell you the note. The sticker on the top is hard to read because it is so small and some of them are very dark colors. Sitting right over the bells I had to strain to read the stickers. 

Update - The bells have held up good, but some of the stickers have fallen off and are not sticky enough to stay on any more.

Included are 11 cards with 21 songs. Songs will be quite recognizable to kids in the US, including London Bridge, Amazing Grace, Oh Suzanna, Yankee Doodle, Old McDonald's Farm, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. The notes on the cards will tell you what to play. Therefore, you do not need to be able to read notes to play these bells, just read each letter and tap the corresponding bell. Again, this is difficult because of the stickers as I described above.

 

Music cards are included.

BTW - you see A# in a couple of the circles on their music cards above, but there is only one A, and it is not sharp. There are a few times when a song needed more than 8 bells. If the bell went above C5, say it went to the next D, since you had no bell for it the song drops to the D that you do have a bell for. Then it jumps back. A little confusing to listen to for me, but it added more songs than you typically find in one octave bell sets.

What I ended up doing is making my own card for each song (see below) and instead of a circle with a letter I colored each circle with the bell color to use. It worked well.

Cards I made.

Get a free set of 23 cards I made myself by going to my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Click here.

Try this:

• Practice tapping the bells before you start so the individual can practice how to grade the pressure.
  
• Tap the bells before you start. Show how the sound goes up in one direction, and the sound goes down as you play toward the other end. This may help the individual predict which way to go as they recognize the music. It may help speed things up. If you play too slow, it will be hard to recognize the tune.
• Grab a metronome app for your phone to help the individual keep time. Stop using one if the individual is not capable of following it. That will just take the fun out of it. If the individual gets anxious when activities are timed or speed is pressed, you could start the beat slow and gradually speed it up. Or skip it altogether.
  
• Cover all lines on the music card except the line the individual is playing, if they have a hard time looking up and down without losing their place.
• Start with shorter songs and build up to longer songs to help keep interest and build endurance.
• Point to each bell, maybe with a pencil so you won't get in the way, in the order to play if the individual is not able to do it any other way. I found that most kids love making music and are pleased when they can do it themselves.
• Keep it fun.