[Bell Historians] Re: CD of Worcester Cathedral Bells

[Roderic Bickerton]

Why single out tower acoustics?
Its probably fair to say that in Grimthorp,s day the intension was to
produce as much sound as possible, and to some extent bell profile was
designed to give a free and more extended resonance to get more sound carry
as much as to make it sound nicer. 

Today a bells prime requirement is the quality of the sound it makes, and
with ever increasing reluctance to have large masses of mettle swinging
about in ancient towers, the less mettle in the bell, for a given note, the
better.

Since true harmonic tuning was introduced there has been a fair amount of
adjusting of profiles, some more successful than others, and little issues
like tuning stretch have muddied the water. 
There is variability in the casting process. 
Much has been written about clapper design and its effect on sound quality.

Then there is the human angle, the impression of a ring being influenced by
how well and how fast they ring, and ones familiarity with a particular
ring.
I would expect we can all think of rings that need really spacing out to be
heard to best advantage, and others which sound quite dead rung slowly but
really start to sing if pushed along.
That brings us back to clap design.
Rod.


"Surley a major factor must be the acoustics of the towers having new rings
installed. It's become relatively rare for bellfounders to get the
opportinity for a complete new ring, and even when that does happen how
often do towers with the acoustics of, say, Chewton Mendip come up?
Virtually never, I would say.
 
David"