[Bell Historians] Re: Telegraph letter

[Richard Offen]

Where's Bill Hibbert when you need him?!!!!

 

R

 

  _____  

From: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com [mailto:bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of Charles Lucy
Sent: Thursday, 15 October 2009 6:59 PM
To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Bell Historians] Re: Telegraph letter

 

  

I understand you skepticism Richard.

 

I would guess that your favoured bells are tuned close to 12 edo, (equal
divisions of the octave).

 

As I found when hastily analysing the recordings of Worcester cathedral a
few weeks ago.

 

This would enable them to be played in 12edo in any of twelve keys.

 

This (12edo) tuning system would be familiar to anyone who listened to music
during the twentieth century, for in that century it became the world's
ubiquitous tuning system.

 

There is general agreement amongst all musical academics and most musicians
that none of the intervals of 12edo are "in tune", and that this 12th root
of 2 tuning system is a convenient (yet flawed) compromise.

 

Tuning bells to Harrison's recommendations, as with all meantone-type
tunings, would limit the number of keys in which 12 bells could be played .

 

For example G# and Ab are different frequencies.

Therefore if the naturals (C through B) are tuned in a Large Large small
Large Large Large small (LLsLLLs) pattern the "black notes" are limited. 

 

E.g. E major triad uses E G# B; 

 

yet F minor triad requires F Ab C.

 

Using the wrong "black note" sounds particularly dissonant.

 

Bells may not be the same as guitars, yet the same principles of tuning will
apply, just as they do for guitars and all other musical instruments.

 

 

 

 

On 15 Oct 2009, at 11:29, Richard Smith wrote:






David Bryant asked:

> To put it more clearly, what are the advantages of the 
> tuning system which you are proposing, and what are its 
> advantages over and above any other tuning system?

... to which Charles Lucy responded:

> Rather than re-writing the text from an existing site, I 
> would like to suggest that you got to a place where the 
> whole system derived from John Harrison's writings is 
> explained in detail, and comparisons to other systems are 
> shown.

So far as I can see, the purported advantage of your / John 
Harrison's tuning system is that you can tune an instrument 
such that music played in different keys sound equally good. 
You mention, for example, the problem of tuning a 
traditional guitar such that you are happy with both the E 
major and G major chords.

Now how is that relevant to bell ringing? We have a brand 
new Taylor twelve in Cambridge, one that I'm overwhelmingly 
pleased with. We use it to ring rounds in D major, Stedman 
Cinques in D major, Cambridge Maximus in D major, Bristol 
Maximus is D major. We have even attempted to ring Orion 
transposed into D major; unfortunately some of the chords in 
this piece sound most unpleasant. I can only assume this 
must be due to some subtle problem with Taylor's tuning of 
the bells, as it often sounds melodious when rung by others 
on the C major Whitechapel twelve at Bow. I shall be 
raising this serious issue with Taylors in the near future.

Never once have we decided to ring Fabian Stedman's 
masterpiece, but in a deep, sonorous Bb major for a change: 
we simply don't care what our bells would sound like rung in 
a far-removed key. We ring them in D major, sometimes we 
ring the front eight in G major, and if we're in a silly 
mood, we might try the descending melodic minor ten in E. 
All closely related keys. Bells are not the same as 
guitars.

RAS

 

Charles Lucy

lucy at lucytune. <mailto:lucy at 9opEQUoOgosWT5pG2FYb8MnvKhcAkNnHvr2SIbBTGS_YDI-Nd6_Fy_T7u8GHw0nWewKgoo-LeQ.yahoo.invalid> com

 

- Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -

 

for information on LucyTuning go to:

http://www.lucytune <http://www.lucytune.com> .com

 

For LucyTuned Lullabies go to:

http://www.lullabie <http://www.lullabies.co.uk> s.co.uk

 

 

 



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