How to Choose a Liturgical Bell
By: John Burnett

In your quest for a fitting voice for your church, your first questions concern: the foundry (its work and expertise), the sound of the bell itself, and its appearance.

Acoustics also leads to questions of tradition: How does a bell express the ethos and vision of liturgical art?

Finally, the pragmatic questions: What bells are available and would fit your budget? What sequence would make a good set? And, what is the warranty guarantee?

Let's start to look at these issues by comparing bells to icons.

Bell manufacturing should be supervised by professional ringers who can test the quality of each bell and make sure not only of its own quality, but also that it fits the other bells of the set for which it is destined. Of course, this choice requires that the foundry be casting more than one or two bells of any given size at a time. But it's important to know that even if a bell sounds beautiful in itself that does not necessarily mean it will sound great with another.

The Foundry
What kind of tradition and experience does the foundry have?

Is it experienced in bell-making?

Do they really know what they're doing when they set out to cast a bell of a certain weight and pitch?

How do they stand up to their competition?

The Sound
There are several considerations here: how to select a bell that is to be rung with others, and then questions of what constitutes a good bell in the first place.

An ideal bell would emit three sounds: the base tone (here called prime), followed closely by the first overtone a third higher than the base, and then a hum tone an octave lower.

However, various superfluous sounds (partials) are part of the voice of any traditional bell, and so the strike note that a bell makes might better be described as its "timbre" or "register", than as a "tone." This is true even of bells that have been mechanically tuned.

The aggregate of main and partial tones gives each bell a distinctive "personality," so that no two bells sound quite alike, even if they were cast in the same mould. Bell makers try as far as possible to eliminate this distinctiveness by eliminating the partials, as far as they can. They do this by turning the bell on a lathe after its cast, to very precise specifications.

When you encounter an unfamiliar bell, lightly strike its outside wall with a something hard like a coin or a pebble, either in the zone where the clapper strikes, or in the zone responsible for creating the basic tone, which is located in the middle part of the bell. This area is called "polya," the "field." The field should have a lower tone than bell's skirt.

So test the bell with your hammer: Do the sounds register well? Do they have a good relationship?

Strike the outside. Strike and listen. If you don't hear the overtone resonating four to five seconds after the strike (if the bell "growls" or "whines"), and if you don't then hear the bell humming on its own (after 10 to 12 seconds on a small bell, or less than a minute on a one-and-a-half ton bell), don't buy it.

Why not? All bells will eventually crack, because you stress the metal every time you strike them. With proper care, though, you should get at least a few hundred years out of yours. But if a bell has the characteristics just described, it will definitely crack, sooner rather than later. Absence of a sustained resonance is a sign that oxygen was not allowed to escape from the alloy when it was cast. If you were to break the metal, you'd find that it was shiny and crystalline, with branch-like shapes pointing inward like arrows. You may even find that if you deliver several sharp hammer blows in a place on the bell where you won't damage it (that is, where the bell's form flares outward), the metal will actually chip. A good bell will only receive a dent.

In a good bell, you should be quite impressed about the relative softness of the bronze alloy. Brittleness is not good.

Now inspect the tongue of the bell visually, and then try it striking the bell with it.

You need to know, of course, that the place struck by the clapper on a new bell might have to be broken in. Before it is broken in, the bell's true sound will be somewhat distorted. To hasten this process, foundries will usually tap the area with a sledge hammer swung with the same force as the swinging clapper. This should be done at the factory, but if you're getting a brand-new bell, you might have to take this somewhat into account.

At any rate, now give the bell a serious ring. With a full, powerful blow, you should be able to hear the reverberation of the entire plurality of tones that form the sound, in your ears, as the single base tone. The human ear and brain are organized in such a way that it will sound good if the minor third rings for a long time above the base tone, as if cutting through the spectrum of the loud, primary overtone.

As the reverberation softens, the bell should continue to hum sonorously, evenly and richly for a long time. The authentic timbre of the bell you choose will be immediately apparent.

The sound of a good bell will awaken something deep in you, a kind of genetic and archetypal memory. But it will not have the "precision tuning" of a carillon bell.

Each bell should sing well with the other bells that compose the set, but here, personal distinctiveness is as prized as the various colorful characters that make up our human communities.

The Appearance
What's the quality of the decoration, iconography and inscriptions?

The decoration on a liturgical bell should certainly not be less than aesthetically pleasing; in fact, it should be more. A bell is a singing icon, so it's good to ask whether the visual icons on it are worthy of the name also.

Is it beautiful? A liturgical instrument should be fit for liturgical use. The shape of the bell is dictated by acoustic considerations; except for some modern, experimental bells, any bell that deviates from the classic lines will not sound good at all. Your own sense of tradition and good taste will be the judge here

Specifications
What bells are available from a given foundry?

Do they fit your tonal, budgetary, and other considerations?

Each foundry uses its own distinctive style and profile. Some foundries allow icons on small bells; others will cast them only bells of 100 kg or more. Some give a high, elegant polish to their bells; others prefer a look that's more unfinished and medieval.

Sequence of Tones
In the final analysis, your main consideration in buying new bells is going to be tone sequence. Do you have an existing bell of good quality which you intend to continue using? What scale or key does it require you to ring?

Finally, every foundry offers a warranty, but you need to ask what the warranty really means. Is it simply a promise to fix problems, or do they really have a track record that says there just won't be any problems?

John Burnett is the executive manager of Blagovest Bells.

Product Roundup

Schulmerich's Generation 4
Schulmerich's Generation 4 electronic carillons offer vast opportunities for customization with:

• Keyboards, organ tie-ins
• Various bell voices
• Peals and tolls
• Clock chimes
• Fully programmable interface

Schulmerich offers five octaves of MelodyChime instruments, seven full octaves of handbells and new four octave wireless electronic MIDI MelodyWave instruments.
www.schulmerichbells.com
 
Van Bergen
The van Bergen Company has worked with thousands of churches during its 200 years of service. The company can:
* Design
* Build
* Install
Your church can have a custom bell tower complete with bronze bells or digital bells.  Honoring loved ones with a beautiful bell tower and bells is a permanent gift that will last for generations. Van Bergen will provide a rendering for discussion and will work with you to achieve your goal for a bell tower.
www.vanbergen.com

Verdin Company
The Verdin Company is one of the world's premier manufacturers of:
* Bells
* Chimes
* Carillons
Verdin's craftsmanship is displayed in more than 30,000 installations throughout the world. The Verdin product line includes cast bronze bells/chimes/carillons, bell ringing equipment, bell towers and a variety of electronic carillons, as well as tower and street clocks
www.verdin.com

Royal Eijsbouts from Chime Master Systems
Chime Master Systems is an authorized distributor for Royal Eijsbouts of The Netherlands. According to Chime Master Systems, the company is associated with the world's largest bell foundry. Royal Eijsbouts casts tuned bronze bells from 20 pounds to more than 10 tons.  The company also specializes in:
* Single bells
* Peals of bells
* Chimes up to 22 bells
Customized project quotes are available. 
www.chimemaster.com