[Bell Historians] Bell Notes

[Hayden Charles]

Alan wrote on 24/04/2012 09:20:
> Somewhat off-topic, but I wonder if those amongst us who are musically knowledgeable could be kind enough to translate notation to frequency?
>
> The bells where I ring are designated  F,  Eb,  Db,  C,  Bb,  Ab,  from treble to tenor (7.5 cwt).  This conveys nothing to me, whereas frequency (Hz) would be very meaningful.
>
> The various web sites which claim to give the answer have only added to my confusion!

I am no expert but from similar sized bells would expect the nominal of 
the bell with pitch C to be around 1048Hz, given 'standard' pitch where 
A=440Hz. But as people who tune bells are on this list I stand to be 
corrected.

As bells are not regularly played alongside other instruments then it is 
more important that they are in tune with the other bells in the ring 
rather than conforming to some pitch standard. Pitch standards have 
varied down the years, as have tuning systems (or temperaments) so it is 
impossible to say that a particular note is equivalent to one frequency.

Many towers listed in 'Dove' have details of the bell notes given with a 
frequency for the nominal.

See <http://dove.cccbr.org.uk/home.php> and look up the tower in 
question to see if the information is known already.

Bill Hibbert's comprehensive site has excellent explanations of what it 
is we actually 'hear' when we listen to a bell.

See <http://www.hibberts.co.uk/>

If you can make a digital recording of each of your bells, then Bill's 
free software, wavanal, will allow you to analyse the recordings and 
give comprehensive data on the frequencies.

Hope that helps.

Hayden Charles