[Bell Historians] Chime and chime again

[Carl S Zimmerman]

Chris P wrote: "I have heard the synthetic chime near Moor Street, ..."
and then "should synthetic bells be included ... ?"

"Synthetic" -- what a marvelously appropriate word! I'll have to put 
it to use in this context on the Websites I maintain.

In my early years in the Guild of Carillonneurs, there was some 
discussion of what to call the various electronic devices which 
imitated carillons. Obviously _we_ couldn't call them "carillons" 
(though their manufacturers did); we played "real" carillons. 
Someone proposed "nollirac", which was rather clever but 
unfortunately didn't catch on. Nowadays we just ignore the 
things--real tower bells seem to be doing quite all right in spite of 
the vagaries of the economy.

I did put up a page on the GCNA Website listing some "things that are 
not carillons" which can be found elsewhere on the Web. But that's a 
very different context from a county survey of churches and bells, so 
there's no intent to make it "complete". In my private inventory of 
tower bells in the St.Louis region, I do make note of the presence of 
"speaker systems", if only to be able to give a proper reply to a 
claim that the place has bells.

-- 
=Carl Scott Zimmerman= Co-Webmaster: http://www.gcna.org/
Voicemail: +1-314-821-8437 (home) mailto:csz_stl at s...
Saint Louis, Missouri, USA - 19th c. home of up to 33 bell foundries