It’s not Quasimodo, but it’s fun anyway

After Friday of this week I will have played seven 15-minute concerts on the Mahanay Memorial Carillon Tower bells. It’s been a learning experience, and it’s a whole lot of fun. Education and entertainment — doesn’t get much better than that.

The first concert was immediately before the opening ceremonies of the Bell Tower Festival on Friday evening, June 9. That was one of the educational episodes.

I learned that the bigger bells, in the lower two octaves, are louder than the smaller bells in the upper two octaves. Duh.    

What that meant, for listeners, was that my harmony accompaniment in the bottom octave overshadowed the melody line in the third octave. So some of the numbers I selected were a little hard to discern, especially for the many folks gathered on the courthouse plaza immediately below the tower for the opening ceremony.

What’s more, two bells played at exactly the same moment sometimes clash with each other because of the overtones.

One of the factors that make carillon bells so wonderful and chime-like is their overtones — several tones that sound at the same time as the primary note. But two or three bells played simultaneously really clog up the sound waves.

In addition, a melody line played too fast creates the same kind of sound jumble.

So by Saturday afternoon and Sunday noon, when concerts two and three took place, I had adjusted my playing style. I now try to play the melody in the bottom two octaves, with some counterpoint or “gingerbread” in the upper bells.     

And I’ve tried to select numbers that have a moderate, comfortable tempo, so that runs and syncopation don’t confuse themselves, and the audience.

There are tens of thousands of tunes that can be played on the carillon, most of them familiar to most people. I think you’d be surprised if you try listing all the musical pieces you know: hymns, patriotic songs, classical melodies, pop, rock, jazz, folk, old standards, children’s songs, etc.

It’s really not difficult, if you’re comfortable with a piano keyboard, to pick out a melody in a stretch of a couple of octaves.

The trick is to play the ones that aren’t too fast, or too jerky, and to play them in a key that works for you, so you don’t have to hesitate to find the right notes.

That usually means the key of C, or G, or F, whether it’s major or minor. They don’t have many sharps or flats, so you’re playing mostly on the white notes.

Our keyboard is located on a mezzanine about 25 feet up, accessed via a stairway from the south side of the tower lobby. Because there’s a ceiling above the mezzanine, the keyboard player doesn’t hear the actual bells as they’re played.

That’s a good thing, because there’s a delay of about a third of a second between the pressing of a key and the sound of the corresponding bell.

That delay could prove confusing for the keyboard player.    

A small speaker has been installed next to the keyboard so that the keyboard folks can hear what they’re playing. That’s a plus as well.

For listeners, as Tim Verdin of the Verdin Company pointed out (they provided all the bells for the tower, plus installation), the very worst place to listen to bell numbers is right next to the tower. That’s because bell sound follows line of sight, and some of the bells are out of sight when you’re standing or sitting close to the structure.

So a listener is better off at least half a block away — for instance, closer to the southeast or northwest corner of the courthouse lawn. The bells blend better at that distance, or even a block or two away.

Becky and Alan Greiner and Peg Raney have ramrodded the organization of a stable of carillon players (some 50 of us so far), and Michelle Fields, a keyboard artist herself, has helped instruct us beginners on the ins and outs of playing bells with a keyboard.

The Mahanay Memorial Carillon Tower is highly unusual.

To begin with, there are only three other full carillons in Iowa, and only some 450 or so in the United States, to my understanding.

And most of them are played the traditional way, by hammering the mechanism and using foot connections for some of the lower octave bells.

The Mahanay Carillon is no doubt one of the very few that’s played on a keyboard.

So we Mahanay bell-ringers have had to learn by trial and error what works best for us. We’re getting better, but we still have a way to go.

In addition, there are a couple of quirks with the carillon right now that listeners will have to endure for a few weeks.

Tim Verdin explained to us that while the striker mechanisms for the five original bells that sound the Westminster chime on the quarter-hour are perfectly settled in and “just right,” new bells and strikers require a “warming-up” period. Some of the new bells are loud enough, but some are too soft.

When the striker mechanisms and connections lose their stiffness and settle in, the sound of the full carillon will be more balanced.

The other oddity is that there are three bells whose strikers are not set correctly. Those are the D, E-flat and F bells a little more than an octave above middle C.

Consequently, those three bells always sound too soft right now. Verdin Co. specialists will return to Jefferson before the end of June to readjust those strikers.

In the meantime, I’ve tried to play numbers in keys that avoid those three notes as much as possible. That adds to the challenge and the fun.

If you have requests for numbers you’d like to hear on the carillon, please let the tower guides know. I’ll try to accommodate them as best I can.

There’ll be no tip jar.