How to Listen to the CARILLON

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 42, 29 April 1932, Page 7

How to Listen to the CARILLON

by

GLADYS

WATKINS

[A 2YA Broadcast]

Miss Gladys Watkins is a well-known Welling gton teacher of pianoforte. About "four years ago she went home to England to further; her studies im that art, and, while there, conceived the idea of studying carillon playing. With this in view she undertook a course of siudy in Malines, Belgium, and, at the end of this term, she was recommended by the Director for a further course of study. Ait the end of a year she gained the diploma. On her return to London she gave regular recitals on the Wellington Carillon, then temporarily housed in Hyde Park.

' title of this talk-"How to Lien to ‘the Carillon’-I must lead up to the subject by introducing other points which have a direct bearing on the one I have chosen as a title, The music of bells is utterly unlike any other, for a bell has characteristics unique among other musical ‘instruments. T can enlarge on the

_ To-night you ‘will not be asked to listen to the long story of their beginning and development, though that is teeming with interest, historic, tragic, romantic and poetic. Of tragic historic interest was the dreadful ringing of the Bell of St. Bartholomew’s in Paris, which signalled a massacre unparalleled in its ferocity. In later days was the stirring call to armsthe Germans were invading Belgium, and that great master carillonist, Jef. Denyn, played the carillon of St. Rombant’s in Malines, calling to arms the sons of Belgium with a patriotic fervour which set their hearts on fire. Then there is the famous poem which we all recited with so much enthusiasm-"Curfew shall not ring to-night!" The poem which thrilled our schoolgirl and schoolboy hearts ! Until the end of the 15th Century, bells were used attached to the city clocks to indicate time; then in the 16th Century a clavier and pedals were introduced which made it possible for the bells to be played by human agency, and quite independently of the clocks. The clavier is set in a wooden frame and consists of 2 rows of rounded wooden levers played by the hands and a row of flat levers (rather larger), which are used by the feet for the feet are needed to bring the heavier bells into play. These foot and hand levers are attached by a system of wires, springs, etc., to the clappers of the bells. The bells, which in their turn are fixed into a steel frame in rows, do not swing, but are stationary.

The clappers are drawn down by a separate system to within about 2 inches of the lip of the hell and etrilee the hell feam ¢hat Aletanra

EEE EE! EIEN! EE EOE EES EE OR SORA WO Ol FOS we Now, you can understand that, because the clapper has a journey of only 2 inches, the full resonance of the bell is not used, and the player can only use the momentum gathered during that short journey of 2 inches for his biggest tones. This is an important point for the listeners to remember. They are not going to hear the full power of the bell. If it were possible to

use all the tone a bell is capable of; we might be able to hear our Carillon out in Cook Strait, or on the summits of the Rimutakas! Now, for something about a bell. A bell is cast to a certain note. It is called the "strike note." When that note is sounded there are set vibrating other notes (of course much fainter, but plainly audible) ; these over-

tones or harmonics are the octave below the strike note, the octave above, and the 3rd and 5th above. These four bell harmonics must be in tune with one another, and with the "strike note," and the "strike note," of course, in tune with the other notes in the chromatic scale. One of the points of difference between a "Carillon" and a "Chime" is that in the case of the former the scale is arranged in semi-tones-twelve sounds in the octave-(our own Carillon has four complete octaves, making 49 bells). In the case of a "Chime," it is built on the diatomic scale, consisting of tones and semi-tones. Now, here comes another point it is necessary to stress on the minds of listeners. When the bells are played on April 25, of terrible and glorious memories, you are going to hear music absolutely new to your experience. You will hear harmon‘ised melodies, and around those melodies will float a mist of sound formed by those harmonics which I have just mentioned, and which veil the melody from beginning to end. T first the ear is bewildered by that apparent confusion, but after a little one becomes prepared for and actually to enjoy that very thing which makes bellmusic so appealing, and so haunting in its beauty. There have been some experiments when the. bells have been "damped." A somewhat similar process to that of the "soft" pedal of a pianowhich damps or checks some of the vibrations of the string. _ These experiments have proved ee . ,

‘that MOSt OF tHe DCAULY OF VEiWINUSIC ts 4U5b Wiltss the "harmonics" are killed by such damping. _ The Carillon is capable of much expression

and many moods in the hands of an expert and temperamental player. The ection, from ‘wooden lever to the clapper, is so finely adjusted that he has command over a wide range of colour or "nuance" as the more sensitive French word expresses it. The technique to be achieved is something to marvel at, for the player can build up massive chords, (Continued on page 13d

How to Listen to the Cariilon (Continued from page 3) trill brilliantly on the smaller bells, and give us cascades of scales and arpeggios which makes the tower itself seem to be vibrating to the sound of its own music. This capacity for brilliancy of effect is the more astonishing as practically ali these effects ‘are produced, not as at the piano, with ten fingers, but with two firmly closed fists. At this point I want to stress again these two points, the limited resonance of the bell due to the position of the clapper and to the harmonics, which at first are bewildering to an unprepared ear, those over-tones which are ever present and must be accepted as inevitable. And from these two points I move on to the next: How and where to listen to the carillon. I am not going to mame any street or actual location for the listener, for it depends on vari- . ous conditions-weather, when you will ‘huddle under the few verandas to be found in that locality (if "weather" means "rain’!). "Wind," when naturally we leave the windward side of the tower and listen on the leeward sidethough if it’s only a Beaufort No. 13 wind, we will not be at all disturbed!

Don’t stand so that a building comes between you and the tower, for a building casts what are called "sound shadows." Keep to positions in which is the least traffic. Again, take up your position where the melody stands out from the harmonics. .Concentrate on the melody and you will find that gradually the ear becomes accustomed to that ever-present mist of sound, till at jast these very harmonics will reveal themselves as one of the chief beauties of bell music. These first recitals will bring again to you, clothed with an unfamiliar but beautiful rope of sound, the old melodies which have grown out of the very souls of a great nation. They will bring, too, the songs and choruses our men sang, those men in whose honour the bells will for ever sing. :