Here are a few things I've picked up over the years that might help when writing pieces for bells or chimes

Score Setup

- handbells are transposing instruments, sounding up an octave; e.g., what looks on the page like Middle C (C4) is actually C5. Some computer notation programs don't know that, so make sure you're hearing it as it will sound. In reality, though, they don't sound as shrill as you'd expect from playing up an octave on the piano.

- bell choirs are sized by how many octaves they play. The smallest common one is 2 octaves, from (written) G below Middle C (G4) up to G6 (at the top of the treble clef). Then 3 octaves, from C4-C7, and 4 octaves, from G3-G7, and so on. Every pair of notes is played by a different person, so try to not leave the upper or lower extremes alone too long, or the players will be bored or lose track of where they are. With bigger choirs, lines are often doubled at the octave to keep everyone involved.

- C#5 and below are only in bass clef, Db5 and above only in treble - even if it makes a melodic line hard to follow. You might have to cross-staff a melodic line that passes through Middle C. Lines are sometimes used to connect melodic notes going between clefs, to make it clear to the players that their apparently random C or B is part of a tune.

- use very large print (the music is pretty far away from the ringers), number every bar (not just systems), and try to have long notes around the page turns (so ringers can put down one bell to turn, then pick it up again); a poorly planned page turn can make a piece very frustrating to rehearse. 

- the "Bells used" chart at the beginning, which is mandatory, can take some time to get looking right. Make sure you get every bell in there, to save irritation during rehearsal. There should be no key signature, and the notes are stemless.

- many successful members of bell choirs are not very literate, musically. The most common related problem I've seen is confusion among the ringers from seeing multiple lines on a staff, with opposite stemming (to indicate contrapuntal voices). It's sometimes better to combine the lines and just tie notes together, even if that makes your carefully wrought fugato look odd from a musician's point of view.

Compositional Considerations

- arrangements of well-known tunes work well with beginning/intermediate groups, because hearing a melody they know helps them stay together

- a tune with some characteristic rhythm or interval will be more interesting/identifiable to the listener than one that's all quarter notes moving stepwise

- choose a key so that the tonic or dominant is one of the two bottom bells; otherwise, the ringer of the bottom two doesn't get to play much (this guideline applies most to small ensembles, because in larger ones the bottom ringer often rings more than two bells).

- sometimes, especially with a two-octave group, there's only one octave in which the tune can be set, which can make things monotonous; don't be afraid to choose a different key than the one in the hymnal, to modulate, or to change octaves in the middle of a tune for a question-and-answer feel between phrases.

- for AGEHR Level 1 or 2 groups (beginning/intermediate), quarters or eighths should be your fastest note; sixteenths are hard to count for some ringers at this level. Avoid fast notes in the bass clef, especially lower down - those bells can be slow-moving, and don't damp quickly.

- close-position chords higher up, even with stacked seconds, usually sound good

- playing by themselves can scare some bell ringers, so avoid long stretches of single-line music, and also avoid fast scales, especially with smaller groups; any rhythmic problems the players have will be pretty evident in a scale.

- be careful with chromatics; any accidental or change of key should probably be preceded by at least two beats where the note's normal version isn't used (changing bells can throw ringers off their counting, and since bells take some time to damp, there's almost always some bleeding over of the sound, which can make a bad cross-relation if the two notes are consecutive). A good way to get around this is by having the distantly related notes/chords in different octaves (e.g., high C-major chords answered by low Ab-major chords, so the E and Eb aren't played by the same person)

- pickups (starting on an upbeat) and dotted-note rhythms are sometimes confusing to beginning ringers

- bells don't naturally have a wide dynamic range, and most bell-ringers ring mf throughout, so dynamics are more effective if written in through thin or thick textures

- since bells have more overtones than does piano, jazz or other chromatic harmony that works on piano sometimes doesn't on bells; I've found triads or added-note chords (add6 and 9s) a good limit for less experienced choirs; minor seconds often sound worse than you'd expect.

- don't be afraid to let the low or high regions of the choir rest for a long period, especially right before the climax (if you're ending the piece on a big splashy chord)

- compared to other instruments, bells are pretty quiet from a distance, and can easily be covered by an organ or even piano; I've found a call-and-response texture, or at least some sections with just the bells, to be a good solution when using keyboards with bells.

- some techniques which are easy to do and sound/look impressive are: tower swings (arrows going either up or down, aligned with the beat you want them to happen on - the players ring, and bring the bells down by their sides and back up), thumb damps (marked with a staccato dot - the player presses a thumb against the bell while ringing to make a staccato sound), martellato ("table damp," marked with a solid black triangle - the whole bell is mashed into the table, for another staccato effect), or martellato lift ("mart lift"; solid triangle with an arrow; like a martellato, but the bell is lifted from the table before the sound is completely muffled), and echo (notated like a fishhook with an arrow; the bell is rung normally, then touched into the table lightly on the next few beats to cut the dynamic by a notch each time). A laissez vibrer ("let vibrate," marked LV) can be nice if the chord doesn't change (the bells aren't damped until the next barline).

Special Considerations for Chimes

- chimes/handchimes tend to be associated with younger or beginning groups, and don't usually do special techniques. 

- their timbre is much rounder and longer-lasting than that of handbells, and they're sometimes used in handbell music to play a tune in long notes while the bells do some kind of accompaniment figure. They sound good on long chords, too. Many bell players don't like ringing chimes, I think partly because of their almost electronic sound, but also (I think) because handchimes feel less flexible in the hand.

- the standard chime group's range is G4-G6 (the same as a 2-octave bell group), and most bell groups could probably lay their hands on those, but perhaps not ones outside that range.

- they're usually notated with diamond-headed notes when used in a handbell piece.