[Bell Historians] Glastonbury

[Carl S Zimmerman]

At 17:39 +0000 2003/03/19, the_mcwomble wrote:
>--- In bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com, matthewhigby at a... wrote:
>>
>> > It would be a great shame if all decent heavy rings were destroyed
>> > by ringers wanting something easier to ring.
>
>Why should a particular ring of bells be kept as a museum piece, only
>to be rung by the occasional passing band on an outing or tour of the
>area.

Surely the key to Matthew's assertion is the word "decent", which 
clearly would not include rings which are too heavy for their towers, 
or are badly made, or are untunable, etc. &c. (However, it should 
not exclude rings which currently are difficult but which could be 
made less so with less cost and effort than it would take to replace 
them.)

One might just as well ask, "Why is the decent heavy ring at XYZ 
being treated as a museum piece by ringers in that district?" It 
would be far better to take advantage of such a ring through a 
well-planned district-wide progression of teaching. There's no good 
reason why locals can't learn to ring heavy bells, even if starting 
out on light bells is in some respects easier.

Everything has its price. The price to be paid for the wonderful 
sonority which heavy bells can potentially produce is that ringing 
them demands somewhat different effort and technique than that 
demanded by lighter bells. The latter can indeed be pretty and 
tuneful and easy to ring; but the world would be a far poorer place 
if they were all we had left of our campanological heritage.

-- 
Carl Scott Zimmerman, Campanologist
Avocation: tower bells: http://www.gcna.org/ (Co-Webmaster)
Recreation: handbells: http://gatewayringers.homestead.com/
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Voicemail: +1-314-361-5194 (home) E-mail: csz_stl at s...
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