Pitch of bells

[Bill Hibbert]

This is a slightly tongue-in-cheek post, reminiscent of the G-sharp 
versus A-flat debate!

I hope my RW article shows that the link between nominal frequency 
and bell pitch is not as certain as we all believed. The biggest 
discrepancy I have seen so far in a 'normal' sized bell is Southwold 
treble, where the difference is about 1/3 of a semitone.

However, we all know that in big bells the 'secondary strike' gives a 
much larger divergence. On what basis do we describe a bell such as 
Big Ben as E + 27 (i.e. 335.1 Hz) when the note we hear is clearly 
the A above this? :-)

Bill H