[Bell Historians] Pitches of bells

[Andrew Higson]

I think we have conclusively proved that every time you invent a rule, 
someone will either flaunt it or overrule it! Even when I tell people 
(i.e.Clifton) what key their bells are in, they ignore it and do their own 
thing. I wouldn't be so harsh as to dismiss Dickon's idea, but getting 
everyone to play ball is tricky.

Do you think there is also an element of "my tenor is in C# and sounds 
bigger than yours in D flat". OK, doesn't work for Brasted, but I'm sure 
that was why a ring of 12 we made in the late 80's was categorised so even 
though they had a 2# giving a light 8 in G#; G#, A#, B#, C#, D#, E#, F##, 
G#!! Thank goodness we don't have to ring from music.

I'd never though of reclassifying bells on the cusp in a heat wave. Maybe 
there is a market for heat sensitive weights cards that change at the 
appropriate temperature or even better pitch sensitive ones.

Andrew

> I agree entirely, but we are not talking about key signatures on a
> piano. The fact is that terms such as G flat are used by (some!)
> bellfounders. Perhaps Nigel Taylor can tell us why he reclassified
> Brasted as G flat over F sharp.
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> What you are saying Andrew is that there are some note names we
> should never use, and that may well be the right way of doing
> things. But if others insist upon using all combinations then some
> sort of consistent system needs to be devised, and I don't see what
> the improvement on mine is.
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> I should also point out that I wouldn't necessarily suggest naming
> the other pitches in the ring relative to the tenor, but I do see an
> argument for claiming that a ring of bells *should* be defined in
> terms of a musical scale. (Whitechapel currently describes the 5th
> as being C flat which is consistent with a scale in G flat but
> intrinsically is B!) But this is a different argument.
>
> DrL
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