A comprehensive guide to the Bell Choir musical activity introduced as part of the GW2 Wintersday event.
Official Anet Description and tips
How to play
Talk to the Bell Maestrio near the Mystic Forge in Lion’s Arch
Achievements
There are two easily obtained achievements associated with Bell Choir.
- Ring in the Season – Play 500 correct notes in Bell Choir Ensemble – 10 points
- Become the Bells – Complete 10 songs in Bell Choir Ensemble – 10 points
Both achievements will contribute to Apprentice Toymaker achievement.
Rewards
- 1-4 Personalized Wintersday Gifts, depending on how well you perform (i.e your score after 6 rounds). Rewards are given after at the end of sixth round, before the free play round.
- These gifts mostly contain ugly socks, sweaters, etc and sometimes Flawless Snowflakes
Video
Video provided by Petrus, this is video of a perfect attempt – hitting all the notes (perfect 600 score)
Written Guide
You are put into groups of 3 players and can choose a part (upper, lower, middle) that you like to play per group. You will be given six songs, beginning with easy ones and ending with the harder ones. In between songs, scores are tallied and you can recover health by hitting random notes or talk to the Snowman to get back into the group if you got kicked out due to hitting too many wrong notes.
You will be responsible for a section of 8 differently colored lanes, the left 4 corresponding to your 1-4 keys and the right 4 corresponding to your 6-9 keys. It is best to position your hands on the keyboard such that your left hand covers 1-4 and your right hand covers 6-9.
You will want to hit the key corresponding to that lane when the orb in that lane hit the inner blue circle. In the beginning,it is very easy to do so as the notes come a lot slower and you have plenty of time to react. Later on, when you get to harder songs, the orbs come down a lot faster and it can be hard to manage if you don’t react fast enough.
For every song, you start off with a score of 100. For every note you miss, you lose points and health. You can regain health by hitting the correct notes but your score can only decrease. If you miss too many notes in a row, you will take too much damage and get kicked out of the ring. You won’t be able to rejoin the ring until the next song.
Your score will determine how many Personalized Wintersday Gifts you get. Those with poor scores get 1 while those with great scores can get up to 4 gifts. A perfect score would be 600 as that means you managed to not miss a note for all six songs.
