Church isn’t the only place to hear handbells these days.

The Spartan Handbell Choir, a registered student organization, has 11 members - more this year than it has had in its seven-year revival on campus. And several of those members got their start at church.

But they’re not just playing traditional church music.

The musicians try to get away from typical bell music, said choir President Lynn Redding Carlson, an astrophysics and philosophy senior. The choir has 11 songs in its repertoire, including “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “Beach Spring” and “The Sound of Silence.”

The ringing of individual bells come together to form the melody, and most songs are performed without any other accompaniment, including singing.

“The bell has all different sounds because there’s all different ways to ring it,” said zoology senior Gretchen Bluett, the group’s conductor.

Once a week, the choir transforms a classroom in the Music Building into a practice hall.

The desks are shoved into a corner of the wood-floored room, and the students set up black folding tables and place foam blocks covered with green cloth on top of them.

Before beginning to gently lay the bells on the table at Sunday night’s rehearsal, electrical engineering senior Nancy Kindraka pulled a pair of white gloves out of the back pocket of her jeans. She reminded the others to put on their gloves as they lamented the condition of the bells.

The bells are brass, and the oils from players’ hands damage them, so the players wear the gloves to protect them, Kindraka said.

The bells have been at the university since the late 1950s. In the 1970s, MSU’s handbell choir played at one of then-President Richard Nixon’s Christmas tree-lighting ceremonies. In those years, the bells have incurred a lot of wear and tear.

As a result, some of the bells make a tinny sound and need to be repaired. The choir, which collects dues for music and other supplies, hopes to have the bells refurbished this summer. Refurbishing includes taking apart and cleaning the bells and replacing screws and anything else that needs it. The bells are then set to the same scale.

It will cost a couple thousand dollars to refurbish them, not including shipping or insurance, so the choir will seek an ASMSU grant. ASMSU is MSU’s undergraduate student government.

To save money, the choir may drive the bells to the company in Ohio that fixes the White Chapel brand. The bells were made in London by White Chapel, the same brand that made the Liberty Bell and the bell in England’s Big Ben.

On Sunday, the group started to work on “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which it had just gotten the music for the day before.

“Let’s start this out slow because I don’t know how hard it’s going to be for you guys,” Bluett told the choir.

Zak Bremer, an interdisciplinary studies in social sciences senior, held four small bells, two in each fist, as he watched Bluett raise her arms in the air. She counted out measures, telling the choir when to shake its bells rather than ring them.

When playing the handbells, most choir members held an unused bell to their chest as they extended their opposite arm out and up in a circle to ring the bell. Others, such as Carlson, plucked the clappers of bells that lay flat on the table.

As the choir moved through the song, Kindraka frantically turned the page of the music in between putting down one bell and picking up another. The musicians had anywhere from three to 15 bells in front of them, but they weren’t playing them all at the same time or in the same song.

However, Carlson, who has played the bells since seventh grade, said she has been responsible for as many as 10 bells at once.

How do they keep track of all those bells?

“Oh, you know the order they’re in,” Carlson said, laughing. While playing, the musicians shift the bells around, so they’re in the right spot the next time they need them.

When the choir had played “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” through once, the group broke it down, talking about what needed work.

“Do you think we can pull this together in the time we have?” one member asked amid the chatter. The choir was practicing for an April 21 concert in the lounge of Eustace-Cole Hall.

Other members talked about the best way to learn the music, and the group went through the song again, only this time going page by page through the music.

The choir doesn’t have an instructor, so the players learn from each other. And there’s not a music major among them.

“Since most of us have played before, we all know different techniques,” Carlson said.

It’s a group effort.

“It has to be,” said Katie Natchek, a Lyman Briggs physiology junior.

For more information, e-mail the group at msubells@hotmail.com.