[Bell Historians] Link

[Carl S Zimmerman]

At 19:36 +0000 05/11/23, David Bryant wrote:
>Surely it's the harmonic structure arising from the traditional bell shape
>which is what makes a bell what it is - radically change the shape, and
>hence the harmonic structure, and you have produced a different instrument.

Exactly so, and this is the reason why the otherwise very interesting 
work by the Eijsbouts bellfoundry in producing a "major third" bell 
some 20 years ago was not a success. The harmonic structure of these 
bells meant that a great deal of music arranged or written for the 
traditional carillon of minor third bells yielded an unpleasant sound 
when played on a carillon of major third bells. So although the 
playing mechanism was traditional, the sound was not, and to make 
effective use of this new instrument required major changes in 
repertoire of the players. Hardly anyone was willing to do so, with 
the result that there are only three Eijsbouts major-third carillons 
in existence - two in the USA and one in the Netherlands.

Carl