'Digital' Bells

[Robert Gift]

A company which manufactured fire apparatus, and also cast the bells
for their fire engines, now produces carillons! Petit & Fritzen?

I play the carillon.
I would complain about that church starting bells at 5:00 AM!!
They should turn down the volume - should not be louder than REAL bells.
They should not be allowed start so early - unless they always did and your house was later constructed nearby.

Real cast bronze bells are so expensive - middle C weighing
5,000 lbs is over $50,000 for that ONE note!
In a scale, they will often omit the first two sharps: C,D,E,F,F#,G,G#...
The low C# and D# would be nearly as expensive as the C and D bells
but not played enough to justify the cost.

I "played" a Change Ring on the chime of 10 bells in the Denver City Hall clocktower. Played from piano-type keyboard.

Four notes C,D,E,F played by left hand in red ink on the staff paper/
bells G,A,B & C played with right hand in green notes.

Extremely difficult to play because each change (pattern) of 8 bells is different (changes to a new pattern)
and my hands/brain struggle with awkward strange-sounding patterns and want to repeat others.

Wish I could program each pattern correctly and then go outside to listen and enjoy instead of struggle to get it right - at which I still failed.
An English couple visiting over Christmas was very moved to hear it.

[Daniel]

Unfortunately in Oregon, there are no true carillons. The largest chime is of ten bells in Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland. Various Catholic parishes and a handful of Protestant churches around the northwestern part of Oregon have between two and five bells, but nothing to play tunes on. Most of these have weird pitch combinations (in my notation, C2 = middle C on a piano). Immaculate Conception Cathedral (Catholic) in Portland has only three bells (D1,F1,Ab1) dating from the 1880's which are still rope-pealed -- I have rung them many times. Others include F1,A1,D2,E2 (St. Mary parish, Mt. Angel), F#1,B1,D2,E2,F#2 (Mt. Angel Abbey), D1,F1,G1,D2 (St. Boniface, Sublimity), C2,B2 (St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Portland), and others. There are many Russian Old Believers and other sects of Orthodoxy around here, each having odd-pitched zvons of small bells with no apparent tuning, such as C2,G2,G#2,C3,A3 (Holy Ascension Cathedral, Woodburn) or C#2,G2,Bb2,Eb3 (nearby prayer hall) and F2,A2,C#3,D3 (another prayer hall). One in Rogue River even has four cutoff oxygen tanks hanging from the porch with hammers for playing.

[Robert Gift]

How interesting, Daniel!

Are you a member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America?

You should be.

If they all getheir bells together, they'd have a tune-playing instrument!

Good of you to get and document all those pitches. The GCNA would love that information.

Would be fun to get O2 tanks and cuthem off and then fine tune them.

Carillon bells are carefully lathed to tune the pitch of the bell and the "internal" partials in each bell.
Each bell has 5 tuned partials:
Lowest C = "hum-tone"
middle c "strike note" does not actually exist - is a resultant of the other partials.
E-flat "tierce" gives the bell it's metallic sound
G "quint"
c "nominal"
e-natural "second tierce" slightly clashes with the E-flatierce below

When you play music, best not to play major thirds next to each other
For example: E-natural bell would clash with the E-flatierce of the C bell.

[Daniel]

No, I don't belong to the guild. I've never played an actual carillon, nor have I access to one. I have always wanted to construct a three-octave carillon from welding tanks, though. My only experience with is with the old Schulmerich electronic system at my home parish (which doesn't mind major 3rds or 6ths) and the chime of eight bells in Shandon Church in Cork, Ireland, dating from the 1780's. Those are played by pulling captive ropes (tied at the bottom with a pulley about two feet above it, sounded by pulling the rope towards yourself) , and comprise a major octave of C#1 to C#2. My current parish in Salem, Oregon, has only one Eb2 bell which is rope-pealed. If I'm not there on Sunday, it usually doesn't get rung.

Interestingly, one of the most common arrangements for 3-bell peals in Germany is root-2nd-maj. 3rd., i.e. F-G-A, which is one of my favorite pealing intervals. Sounds horrible on a carillon, but quite nice in a peal. Mount Angel Abbey has eventual plans to construct a new bell tower and replace their four Stuckstede alloy bells (F#1,B1,D2,F#2) with better ones from Europe. One of the proposed schemes for eight new bells is A0,C1,D1,F1,G1,A1,C2,D2. If they go with that, the large bell will be the biggest in the state.

[Melvin Potts]

If you've ever had the privilege of listening to a real carillon, especially if it is being played by hand, you would never want to hear another electronic.

Another amazing sound rarely heard here is English change ringing. This cannot be done electrically with real bells, but must be performed with a human ringer for each bell. The bells are held upside-down and swing full circle with each rope pull, stopping in the inverted position. They are sounded according to mathematical sequences and peals can last for hours.

Daniel: Very good observations..and so true!

I've heard a few real carillons. There are 2 in Nashville. One is at Belmont University, the other at Lipscomb University. I've attended concerts at both locations.

Lipscomb's carillon is newer than Belmont's. In addition to the concert, I heard it being played prior to graduations I attended there.

I've also heard some others at American Guild of Organists conventions.

English change ringing is something to hear! Years ago('82) I heard change ringing from the Gloria in Excelsis Tower at Washington (DC) National Cathedral.

In 2003 I attended the A.G.O. regional convention in Charleston, SC. During this event I got to hear..and observe..change ringing twice.
One was at St. Michael's Episcopal Church. We were going to a concert at the church; change ringing preceeded the event. Although we weren't allowed to visit the bell room, there was a closed circuit TV there. The receiver was set up at entrance to church so anyone passing by could watch the ringers as they pulled/released the ropes.

Another time we were waiting to get inside Grace Episcopal Church for concert. We couldn't see the ringers, but could see the bells in action through large windows in the belfry. Quite a sight to behold!

[Melvin Potts]

One of my favorite church stories concerns this type of device.

A church where I was once organist had one of these systems. It wasn't digital; was probably installed sometime in the 70s. There were tape cartridges which were inserted into the machine, and the timer set for whatever times the device was to play a hymn, etc.

The cabinet containing the mechanism was in the parish hall; speakers were in tower at front of church.

In addition to chiming the hours (I think it stopped doing that each evening around 6 or 7 PM), the device was set to play a hymn every day (except Sunday) at 9 AM, noon, and 6 PM.

If a wedding was scheduled for 6 PM, someone was supposed to disable the mechanism beforehand.

I still remember one wedding at which the person in charge(probably the pastor) forgot to disable the mechanism. Just as I was getting ready to play the processional, the bells started playing "Abide With Me," which is a pretty standard funeral hymn!