Bell (musical instrument)

I

Introduction

Bell (musical instrument), musical percussion instrument, a hollow cup-shaped vessel, usually made of metal but sometimes made of wood, pottery, or other material, that produces sound when struck with a clapper or hammer. The clapper may be fastened to the inside of the bell, or it may be a separate hand-held or mechanically or electrically moved hammer that strikes the outside rim (as in an electronically operated doorbell). Bells are classified as idiophones (instruments in which resonant solid material vibrates to produce sound); they vibrate primarily near the rim.

II

History

Bells were known in China before 2000 bc and in Egypt, India, Greece, Rome, and other ancient cultures. From earliest times they were used as signaling devices, as ritual objects, and as magical, often protective, amulets (often hung in doorways or around the necks of animals). The use of bells in churches spread through Europe in the 6th to 11th centuries and were first used in Eastern Christian churches in the 9th century.

The earliest metal bells were apparently hammered into a cup shape from a flat piece of metal. When the process of casting metal was discovered, many bells were cast of bronze. The casting of bells declined in late antiquity, and handbells of the cowbell type came into use; these were made of thin metal plates bent into rectangles and fastened with rivets. About ad 800 the casting process resurfaced, making possible the manufacture of large tuned bells.

The small hemispherical cast bell known in antiquity developed differently in the East and in the West. In the East, the cup shape elongated into beehive (convex-sided) or straight-sided shapes, with walls of uniform thickness. In the West by about ad 800, sets of small, hemispherical, mallet-struck bells were played in musical ensembles. Bells were also hung in clock towers and struck with hammers. To forestall the frequent cracking at the rim, bellmakers began using interior clappers and gave their bells a thick ring around the rim. By about 1400 the characteristic campaniform shape of Western bells had evolved: square-shouldered, with straight or slightly concave sides (the waist), flaring out and thickening near the rim (the sound bow). This stronger shape also improved the tone, and in the 15th to 18th centuries bellmakers in the Low Countries specialized in producing bells so well tuned that they could be played in harmony (see Carillon). In England, sets of somewhat differently tuned bells were rung in complicated permutations of a standard sequence, a process known as change ringing.

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A type of iron handbell was developed in sub-Saharan Africa and remains an integral part of many African musical traditions. Because the handbells typically have no clapper, they are struck with a beater to produce sounds. The sharp, penetrating sound of the iron handbell can also be heard in the African-influenced music of Latin America.

III

Bell Founding

Fine cast bells are made of a bronze alloy called bell metal, which typically consists of four parts copper and one part tin. Other metals tend to produce an inferior sound. The tone of a bell also depends on its proportions of height, width, thickness, and shape. A true bell tone is an intricate composite of many partial tones, each produced by vibrations of different sections of the bell. If the tuning of these sections is imperfect, dissonances occur when bells are played in harmony.

In founding, or casting, a bell, a core is built up with clay, contoured to the size and shape of the interior of the bell. A heavy outer shell, made of clay and other ingredients, is then built over the core; the inner surface of the shell conforms to the exterior of the proposed bell. Molten bell metal is then poured into the space between the core and the outer shell. When the metal is cool, the mold is opened and the exterior is smoothed and polished. The interior surface is shaved on lathes in order to obtain the wall thicknesses needed for proper tuning of the partials of the bell tone. The largest bell in the world, the Tsar Kolokol of Moscow, cast in 1733, is 5.8 m (19 ft) high and 61 cm (2 ft) thick and weighs about 181 metric tons. America's Liberty Bell, now enshrined in a pavilion in Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park, weighs 944 kg (2080 lb) and measures 3.7 m (12 ft) in circumference.

IV

Other Instruments Called Bells

Tubular bells, used in orchestras, are sets of tuned metal tubes struck with a mallet. Electronic bells are small rods of bell metal struck by hammers; the resulting sound is then amplified electronically. Jingle bells are small hollow metal bells with a rattling pellet enclosed. Also called pellet bells or crotals, they are technically rattles rather than true bells, but they share with bells a similar history of protective, magical, and ritual uses.

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