[Bell Historians] GSM Cambridge and stretch tuning

[Richard Offen]

Andrew is right, I am listening to these rings more as a musician, with a
(he says modestly!) pretty accurate ear, than a bell tuner.   

Our previous organist at St George's Cathedral couldn't stand the ring
because, to him, they were so dreadfully out of tune, with the progressively
sharper intervals between the bells from the tenor and seventh up used to
drive him mad.   He reckoned the best year of his life at St George's was
the one when were weren't able to ring because of structural repairs to the
tower!

Like Andrew, I am not aware of any of the modern rings of twelve by both
founders, or indeed the pre-stretch Taylor ones having flat sounding
trebles, or even particularly dull ones.

It is all extremely subjective, and I will acknowledge that my time in the
tuning shop (very many years ago now) trained my ear to hear things that
others don't notice, often to the point of spoiling my enjoyment of rings
that others rave about - but a lot of these have stretched treble ..oops,
sorry, we're back where we started!

Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com [mailto:bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of Andrew Higson
Sent: Monday, 8 December 2008 8:12 PM
To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Bell Historians] GSM Cambridge and stretch tuning

I think Richard will be listening and grinding as a musician. 

I'm worried that I'm hearing what Richard hears and not what Bill's
thesis tells me I ought to hear. Bill - I confess that I've not read
your thesis yet - how much is the flattening of the trebles effect
subjective and likely to different interpretation with different ears?
I'm not aware that any of the tens and twelves I personally have tuned
have trebles that sound flat to the extent that criticism has abounded. 

 

Andrew Higson

Taylors Eayre and Smith Ltd

The Bellfoundry

Freehold Street

Loughborough

LE11 1AR

Telephone: 01509 212241 Fax: 01509 263305 Registered in England No.
1352309

________________________________

From: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Bill Hibbert
Sent: 08 December 2008 10:54
To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Bell Historians] GSM Cambridge and stretch tuning

 

RO:
> When Taylors recast the trebles and restored [GSM] in 1952 they made 
them one of their horrible 'stretched' peals

In the debate about stretch tuning, there are no right answers, only 
different wrong ones and the need for compromise! GSM is one of the 
peals that I investigated in my PhD (page 219, for anyone who has 
downloaded a copy) and in fact the treble tuning is close to that 
needed to compensate exactly for the flattening of the strike note due 
to the treble profiles. This is pretty remarkable given that Paul 
Taylor (I assume it was he) had no theoretical understanding of the 
need for stretch, only the evidence of his ears.

Richard, you are listening to these bells as a bellfounder, not as a 
man-in-the-street. Of course the nominals are sharp - but the strike 
notes are flat. Stretch tuning is no longer fashionable, due to the 
discordance of various partials in true-harmonic peals heard in the 
tower. It was certainly taken to extreme in peals like GSM. However, 
the insistence on exact tuning of nominals, because they are easy to 
measure, means the rest of us have to suffer flat / dull trebles in 
higher numbers. Because it is so hard to measure what we hear, the 
argument is lost as soon as the tuning forks come out. That doesn't 
mean that what we hear isn't real!

The two sides of the argument are neatly summarised by two comments on 
a Youtube video of the New York 12 (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?
<http://uk.youtube.com/watch?> 
v=0w6SQdrFSUg)
> is the top bell out of tune?
> no it isn't 

Cheers,

Bill H

PS insert smilies to taste.

 

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