The Campanologists

In Mariemont, Ohio one day last week, Mayor E. Boyd Jordan mounted the 100-ft. tower of the town carillon and entered the tiny clavier room. He loosened his collar and tie, rolled up his sleeves. He rubbed his arms and hands with alcohol, fastened leather guards over his hands, sat down at the keyboard and started pummeling its projecting levers, stamping on its pedals. Above him in the belfry, 23 tuned bells chimed out a program of folk tunes, hymns, a classical number or two. The annual congress of the Guild of Carillonneurs of North America was in town, and Host Carillonneur Jordan was playing them a welcoming recital.

Why should carillonneurs hold a convention? Campanology is a lonely profession. The performer sits in his enclosed cubicle and may pound until he pants, but he rarely hears much more than a jumble of overtones, mixed with the clatter of the levers. Moreover, there are only 79 carillons in North America (eight of them in Canada), so performers rarely have a chance to compare notes. In Mariemont, a suburb of Cincinnati, guildmen wasted only an hour on formalities, got down to business in a hurry; for the best part of three days they took turns at keyboards in the vicinity while the rest lounged listening outside.

The guild is an elite little (60 members) group that looks down its nose at mere "chimes" (fewer than 23 bells) and prefers a carillon with a large number of bells because it is easier to play. The organization has nothing to do with the old English game of change-ringing,* measures a carillon's "niceness" by its weight. Mariemont's instrument is "nice": its largest bell weighs 4,760 lbs., its smallest, 80 Ibs.

As host to the convention, Mayor Jordan took members to nearby Glendale, where members played on the 36-bell carillon of the Episcopal Sisters of the Transfiguration. His proudest moment came when his pupil, Sister Ruth Magdalene, a onetime missionary in China who has studied for only a year, put on the leather guards, pulled up her skirts a bit so that her feet could be freer for the heavy pedals, and rang out a pair of selections. Sister Ruth Magdalene was promptly voted into the guild.

* A mathematical, athletic (rather than musical) pastime; the ringers stand in a semicircle with the bell ropes in their hands, try to ring out every possible arrangement of notes in a given time. With five bells, 120 changes are possible; with twelve, the total is nearly 480 million.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.