<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10>I apologise for any glaring inaccuracies as it is 45 years since I did music theory however for what it is worth here is my two pennyworth. <BR>
The first tuning fork by John Shore in1711 had A as 423.5 cycles per sec. Since then various "tuners" have used A pitched anywhere between 400-455. It was not until 1939 that A 440 was adopted as an international standard. Even now you can get any instrument tuned to any particular style or wavelength that one might require.<BR>
I think that describing a ring of bells that might offend your ear as MINOR would in most cases be entirely inaccurate.<BR>
I, as a matter of interest, organised the first peal on the minor DORIAN front eight of the nine at Basingstoke.<BR>
It is undoubtedly likely that most oldrings of bells are lucky to be anywhwere near in tune. The old founders did not have the technology to acomplish what our modern day ones do. If you look on some web sites and see the complexity of how modern bells are tunedI think that by the seat of their pants old founders from years past did awonderful job.<BR>
We then come to the point that it is likely that some bells were never tuned to fit in with existing ones just merely placed there with the others at approximately the right note. Nowadaysinstruments are generally tuned at equal temprament over the entire range of twelve notes from the octave. If you go to a three bell tower with old bells it is likely that first there was one , then two with the second bell at any note higher or lower. Then there were three and basically any note higher or lower or in the middle of the existing two would do. Now you come forward a few hundred years and try to augment your three to six and still make them sound <B>tuneful </B>and in what we might call an acceptable attempt at a certain key pitch.<B><BR>
</B>Given the words major and minor keys we then get round to Dorian, Phygrian, Ionian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian. These are words that medieval founders would never have heard of let alone be able to tune to.<BR>
If there is a ring of 6 it could be tuned to the front, middle or back of any of the keys. If you have 3, 4 or 5 that gives countless more variations.<BR>
Could we instead adopt a term, such asOLD STYLE , to show that the bells are not tuned to any particular key.<BR>
Howard E. J. Smith - Newcastle Upon Tyne<BR>
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