[Bell Historians] Tuning

[Susan & Christopher Dalton]

> David Bryant: 
> Regarding Nick's point about earlier founders regarding a maiden bell as
> something of an achievement, surely this simply demonstrates that
> expectations of tonal quality then were generally lower than they are now.
> It is notable that even where earlier founders clearly understood true
> harmonic tuning (e.g. the Downham Market founders), they could often not
> acheve it simply because they did not have the technology available to tune
> the bells accurately. They relied on them coming out of the mould
> more-or-less as required, and if they did not there was little they could
> do about it. This is why their bells display an inevitable variability as
> regards tonal quality, and even in complete rings (e.g. Poole?) the bells
> are often not all as good as their founder would no doubt have wished.

[Sounds a bit like a crib from the Poole entry in The Bells & Belfries of
Dorset Part II to me! C D]