Smarden, Kent

[Bill Hibbert]

Here at last are the tuning figures for Smarden, given first as 
frequencies and then as cents:

bell, hum, prime, tierce, quint, nominal, superquint, oct.nom.
1, 299.5, 555.5, 690, 894, 1156, 1728, 2377
2, 269, 496, 614, 787.5, 1019, 1517.5, 2086
3, 241.5, 456, 552.5, 704.5, 914.5, 1360, 1872.5
4, 218.5, 426, 511.5, 663, 855.5, 1276, 1756
5, 196.5, 376.5, 453, 578, 758.5, 1130, 1560
6, 170, 343.6, 404.4, 500.6, 676.6, 1011, 1393.8

bell, hum, prime, tierce, quint, nominal, superquint, oct.nom.
1, -2338, -1269, -893, -445, 927, 696, 1248
2, -2306, -1246, -877, -446, 709, 689, 1240
3, -2305, -1205, -872, -452, 522, 687, 1241
4, -2368, -1207, -890, -441, 406, 692, 1245
5, -2338, -1213, -892, -470, 198, 690, 1248
6, -2391, -1173, -891, -522, 0, 695, 1251

As Richard Offen says, these bells are close to true harmonic and 
sound good rung together. Two things leap off the page on looking at 
these figures. The untuned partials (tierce, superquint, octave 
nominal) are very consistent indeed across all six bells, showing 
good control over designs, profiles, etc. Also, the nominals are 
remarkably stretched, more than would be expected even if Bowell was 
tuning strike notes rather than nominals.

Unfortunately I don't have recordings of Ranworth (yet).

Bill H