Bells have been made and used for centuries; it’s not clear when the first one was made or how the idea came about. What is certain is that for much of history they were made to sound their notes either by striking them with some sort of hammer or swinging them back and forth and letting an internal hammer ( a clapper) strike the inside of the bell. The problem in the latter case is that you cannot control it. The bell swings to the left like a pendulum and then gravity makes it swing to the right and sound again. And that is why a lot of church bells, sound like a jumble of sound, especially on the Continent of Europe.
But in London in the 17th century, we came up with a new idea. We found that if we could rotate the bells full circle, that is through 360 degrees, we could balance them upside down and then we could make them sound when we liked. Mechanisms were developed so that the balancing was made easier and then we could change the sequence in which the bells sounded. And this was the birth of what we call ‘change ringing.’ It’s an English art but today, it is practised all over the British Isles and to a smaller extent in Australia, New Zealand and the USA as well.
At first, bells were just rung in sequence 123456, 123456 etc where the number 1 bell was the smallest and the number 6 bell was the heaviest – much the same as musical scale on a piano. Then people realised that you could change the sequence and so began ‘change ringing.’ At its most basic, the sequences or changes may go something like this: 123456, 214365, 241635, 426153 etc. Bell ringers prefer to write out these changes vertically so that they can see more easily the path of the single bell that they are ringing. So you get:
123456
214365
241635
426153
462513
645231
654321 and so on
Note that each bell either stays in the same position or moves just one place at a time. There is a very good reason for this. Your average bell takes around 2 seconds to rotate so if you wanted to jump from 123456 to 654321, everyone else would have to wait for quite a while for the 6th to do its job and that would cause large gaps in the sound. Not the smooth ripple of sound that you hear coming out of your church on a Sunday morning.
There are many, many different patterns by which these changes are made and these are called ‘methods’ and are given names. The one above is called ‘Plain Bob’ and all these patterns add variety to the sound. This is ‘Little Bob’ – can you see the difference?
123456
214365
241635
426153
462135
641253
614523
Because ringing bells rotate and are meant to be rung by people, they do not get as big as clock bells. Big Ben, for example, weighs 13.5 tons and it would be impossible for one person to ring it through a full circle. Furthermore, a rotating bell of that weight would probably tear the Houses of Parliament tower apart.. The heaviest ringing bell in the world is ‘Emmanuel’ which sits in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral along with 12 other brothers and sisters. Emmanuel weighs 4.2 tons and strikes the note of A flat. I’ve rung it and his no. 11, James who weighs in at a little less than 3 tons.
Bellringers are a friendly lot and always welcome ringers who visit them from other churches. They are also happy to teach newcomers the art. Mind you, even a little bell takes a little effort so if you wish to learn, you will probably have to wait until you are at least 10 years old or more before starting.
Are there ringing bells near you? Try this website:
http://dove.cccbr.org.uk/home.php
Here you can search for ringing bells and get information on their condition in some cases. You will also see the number of ringing bells and the weight of the heaviest one, known as the Tenor.
No comments:
Post a Comment