The largest steel bell in the UK, cast by Naylor-Vickers of Sheffield in 1862, is in St Peter’s Italian Church, Holborn, London. Dickon Love and I visited it on 27 September 2002. This bell is sometimes know as The Steel Monster of Clerkenwell! The bell was exhibited at the International Exhibition of 1862. The exhibition […]
Sound re-created: WAH 8/5/04 Prior to the casting and installation of the current peal of twelve (originally a chime of 14), Coventry had a peal of ten which were by reputation one of the finest tens of their age – they were originally cast by Pack and Chapman in 1774 (though the 6th was recast […]
This article was first published in ‘The Ringing World’ of June 20, 2003, page 586. What determines the pitch of a bell – the note we assign it – has been one of the continuing puzzles of campanology. It was Lord Rayleigh in 1890 who first established scientifically that the pitch of a bell was about an […]
There are various ways that church bells can be used, and this can affect the way they are tuned. The three ways considered in this section of the paper are: sounding singly playing as part of a carillon ringing in changes English style. The last is of most interest, but the first two are briefly […]
Bells may not be symmetrical about their vertical axis. This gives rise to the phenomenon of doublets. A doublet is a mode of vibration which sounds at two (usually closely spaced) frequencies rather than one. The easiest demonstration of this uses only a mug and a teaspoon. A mug is not symmetrical – it has […]
Bells are musical instruments, and are assigned a note on a musical scale which identifies them, and which is used to judge whether a bell is ‘in tune’ with others in a peal or chime. When asked what (single) note a church bell is sounding, most people pick a note about an octave below the […]
Many references describe the way bells are tuned; the Dave Kelly articles, George Elphick’s book ‘The Craft of The Bell Founder’, and Lehr’s paper. A quick recap will be useful. The theoretical background is given in the set of papers Rossing’s Acoustics of Bells. A vibrating bell produces many frequencies of sound, each produced by a different vibrational mode […]
This series of articles was written 20 years ago, before I started my PhD research. I have done minor updates to correct mistakes and mis-understandings on my part. These papers touch on issues that are explored in much more detail in my thesis. If you are looking for an introduction to bell acoustics with less […]
How bells make their sound is a complex but interesting subject. The discussion here is restricted to bells of typical ‘western’ profile, rather than those of the east which have a very different shape. Western bells are usually hit by an iron clapper at a point on the inside, near the bottom, or by an […]
The basic principle of frequency calibration is simple. If a reference tone of known frequency is available, it can be recorded along with the bell sound. When the bell sound is later analysed, the frequency of the reference tone is checked at the same time. If there is a discrepancy, work out the ratio of […]