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Campanology (/kæmpəˈnɒlədʒi/) is both the scientific and artistic study of bells, encompassing their design, tuning, and the methods by which they are rung. It delves into the technology behind bell casting and tuning, as well as the rich history, traditions, and techniques of bellringing as an art form. This field often involves the study of large, tuned bell collections, such as Flemish , Russian zvons, or English "rings of bells" used for change ringing. These unique assemblages come with distinct practices and challenges, and campanology also explores the composition and performance of music written specifically for them.
While campanology primarily refers to larger bells typically housed in towers, it is not usually applied to smaller bell collections, such as glockenspiels, tubular bells, or Indonesian gamelans. Instead, the term is most commonly associated with the use of large bells, their musical and historical significance, and the ongoing efforts to perfect these instruments.
A campanologist is one who studies campanology, though it is popularly misused to refer to a bell ringer. "Campanologist: One who studies campanology, (popularly mis-used to refer to a ringer)." Glossary of ringing terms. Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, 27 April 2016.
These rings of bells have relatively few bells, compared with a carillon; six or eight-bell towers are common, with the largest rings numbering up to sixteen bells. The bells are usually tuned to a diatonic scale without chromatic scale notes; they are traditionally numbered from the top downwards so that the highest bell (called the treble) is numbered 1 and the lowest bell (the tenor) has the highest number; it is usually the tonic note of the bells' scale.
To swing the heavy bells requires a ringer for each bell. Furthermore, the great involved mean that a ringer has only a limited ability to retard or accelerate their bell's cycle. Along with the relatively limited palette of notes available, the upshot is that such rings of bells do not easily lend themselves to ringing melody.
Instead, a system of change ringing evolved, particularly in the early seventeenth century, which centres on mathematics permutations. The ringers begin with rounds, which is simply ringing down the scale in numerical order. (On six bells this would be 123456.) The ringing then proceeds in a series of rows or changes, each of which is some permutation of rounds (for example 214365) where no bell changes by more than one position from the preceding row (this is also known as the Steinhaus–Johnson–Trotter algorithm).
In call change ringing, one of the ringers (known as the Conductor) calls out to tell the other ringers how to vary their order. The timing of the calls and changes of pattern accompanying them are made at the discretion of the Conductor and so do not necessarily involve a change of ringing sequence at each successive stroke as is characteristic of method ringing. Some ringers, notably in the West of England where there is a strong call-change tradition, ring call changes exclusively but for others, the essence of change ringing is the substantially different method ringing. As of 2025 there are 7,255 English style rings. Wales having 230, Scotland 25, and the island of Ireland 61. The Channel Islands has 13 and the Isle of Man 2. 7 in Mainland Europe, 60 in North America, 2 in the Caribbean, 13 in Africa. Australia 72 and New Zealand 11. The remaining 6759 (93%) are in England (including several mobile rings).
Serious ringing always starts and ends with rounds; and it must always be true—each row must be unique, never repeated. A performance of a few hundred rows or so is called a touch. A performance of all the possible permutations possible on a set of bells is called an extent, with bells there are factorial possible permutations. With five bells 5! = 120 which takes about 5 minutes. With seven bells 7! = 5,040 which takes about three hours to ring. This is the definition of a full peal on 7 (5,000 or more for other numbers of bells.) Less demanding is the quarter peal of 1,260 changes. When ringing peals and quarter peals on fewer bells several complete extents are rung consecutively. When ringing on higher numbers of bells less than a complete extent is rung. On eight bells the extent is 8!=40,320 which has only been accomplished once, taking nearly nineteen hours.
Ringing in English belltowers became a popular hobby in the late 17th century, in the Restoration era; the scientific approach which led to modern method ringing can be traced to two books of that era, Tintinnalogia or the Art of Ringing (published in 1668 by Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman) and Campanalogia (also by Stedman; first released 1677; see Bibliography). Today change ringing remains most popular in England but is practiced worldwide; over four thousand peals are rung each year.
Dorothy L. Sayers's mystery novel The Nine Tailors (1934) centres around change ringing of bells in a The Fens church; her father was a clergyman.
The Russian Tsar Bell is the largest extant bell in the world.
It requires only one person to operate. Each hammer is connected by a rope to a fixed frame in the bell-ringing room. When in use the ropes are taut, and pulling one of the ropes towards the player will strike the hammer against the bell. To enable normal full circle ringing on the same bells, the ropes are slackened to allow the hammers to drop away from the moving bells.
The system was devised in 1821 by Reverend Henry Thomas Ellacombe of Gloucestershire, who first had such a system installed in Bitton in 1822. He created the system to make conventional bell-ringers redundant, so churches did not have to tolerate the behaviour of what he thought were unruly bell-ringers.
However, in reality, it required very rare expertise for one person to ring changes. The sound of a chime was a poor substitute for the rich sound of swinging bells, and the apparatus fell out of fashion. Consequently, the Ellacombe apparatus has been disconnected or removed from many towers in the United Kingdom. In towers where the apparatus remains intact, it is generally used like a carillon, but to play simple tunes, or if expertise exists, to play changes.
If a bell is part of a set to be rung or played together, then the initial dominant perceived sound, called the strike note, must be tuned to a designated note of a common scale. In addition each bell will emit harmonics, or partials, which must also be tuned so that these are not discordant with the bell's strike note. This is what Fuller-Maitland writing in Grove's dictionary of music and musicians meant when he said : "Good tone means that a bell must be in tune with itself."
The principal partials are;
Further, less dominant, partials include the major, third and perfect fifth in the octave above these.
"Whether a founder tunes the nominal or the strike note makes little difference, however, because the nominal is one of the main partials that determines the tuning of the strike note."Neville Horner Fletcher, Thomas D. Rossing (1998). The Physics of Musical Instruments, p. 685. . Cites Schoofs et al., 1987 for major-third bell. A heavy clapper brings out lower partials (clappers often being about 3% of a bell's mass), while a higher clapper velocity strengthens higher partials (0.4 m/s being moderate). The relative depth of the "bowl" or "cup" part of the bell also determines the number and strength of the partials in order to achieve a desired timbre.
Bells are generally around 80% copper and 20% tin (bell metal), with the tone varying according to material.
Tone and pitch is also affected by the method in which a bell is struck. Asian large bells are often bowl shaped but lack the lip and are often not free-swinging. Also note the special shape of Bianzhong bells, allowing two tones. The scaling or size of most bells to each other may be approximated by the equation for circular cylinders:
f=Ch/D2
where h is thickness, D is diameter, and C is a constant determined by the material and the profile.Rossing, Thomas D. (2000). Science of Percussion Instruments, p.139. .
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