bell (redirected from bells)

Bell, city, United States

Bell, city (1990 pop. 34,365), Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1927. It is chiefly residential, with printing, metal fabrication, and the manufacture of industrial machinery and lighting fixtures.

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bell, musical instrument

bell, in music, a percussion instrument consisting of a hollow metal vessel, often cup-shaped with an outward-flaring rim, damped at one end and set into vibration by a blow from a clapper within or from a hammer without.

A portable set of bells, usually not more than 15 in number, tuned to the intervals of the major scale, is known as a chime and were first used by the ancient Chinese. A carillon is a larger stationary set with chromatic intervals and as many as 70 bells, which are played from a keyboard. Harmonies and effects of shading, not possible on a chime, are part of the art of carillon playing—an art for which there is a school in Belgium. The bells of a carillon must be tuned with more accuracy than those of a chime; the best modern craftsmen can tune the fundamental (known as the hum note), the octave (known as the strike note), the twelfth, and the fifteenth with perfect accuracy.

An interesting and unexplained illusion manifest in bells is their apparent pitch (strike note): the pitch the observer hears can often be scientifically proved to be different from any of the pitches produced by the bell. Bells have been known in all metal-using cultures and civilizations and have been used in connection with all major religions except Islam. Many legends and traditions are associated with bells, which have been used for signaling, in dancing, and as protective charms. Apparently originating in Asia, in early times bells were employed for religious purposes and were used in Christianity by the 6th cent. Early bells were blessed with holy water, in the belief that dedication to Christian service gave power to ward off lightning.

Sets of bells tuned to a musical scale and called cymbala were used in the Middle Ages for musical instruction and to accompany chant in churches. In the 13th cent., tower bells were attached to clocklike mechanisms to strike the hours. The carillon developed out of the Belgian voorslag of the 15th cent., a set of bells attached to a large tower clock that played a tune before striking the hour. In the Low Countries, where the making and playing of carillons centered, the principal cities vied over the size and complexity of their instruments. A peak in European carillon making was reached in the work of the brothers Frans (1609–67) and Pieter (1619–80) Hemony of Amsterdam. The carillonneur's art flourished until the 18th cent., declining during the French Revolution, when many carillons were melted to make armaments.

Toward the end of the 19th cent., English bellmakers rediscovered the secrets of tuning that had been used by the 17th-century Dutch and Flemish craftsmen. This, with improvements in methods of striking, in placement of the bells, and in action of the keyboard, has made 20th-century carillons the finest in existence. Active in a renaissance of carillon music was Jef Denijn (1862–1941), carillonneur of Mechlin. Since World War I many carillons have been installed in the United States; outstanding is that of the Riverside Church, New York (1930), whose 20.5-ton bourdon bell is the largest ever cast in England. The largest bell in the world was the Great Bell of Moscow; cast in 1733–35, it was broken in a fire in 1737.

Bibliography

See P. D. Peery, Chimes and Electric Carillons (1948); W. G. Wilson, Change Ringing (1965); S. N. Coleman, Bells (1928, repr. 1971); H. R. Jones, About Bells and Bell Ringing (1986); R. Johnston et al., An Atlas of Bells (1990).

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bell

Hollow vessel, usually of metal, that produces a ringing sound when struck by an interior clapper or a mallet. In the West, open bells have acquired a standard “tulip” shape. Though the vibrational patterns of such open bells are basically nonharmonic, they can be tuned so that the lower overtones produce a recognizable chord. Forged bells have existed for many thousands of years. Bells were first cast, or founded, in the Bronze Age; the Chinese were the first master founders. Bells have carried a wide range of cultural meanings. They are particularly important in religious ritual in East and South Asia. In Christianity, especially Russian Orthodoxy, bells have also been used ritually. They have tolled the hours from monastery and church steeples, originally to govern monastic routine and later also to fill a similar role for the secular world.

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bell¹

1. a hollow, usually metal, cup-shaped instrument that emits a musical ringing sound when struck, often by a clapper hanging inside it

2. an electrical device that rings or buzzes as a signal

3. the bowl-shaped termination of the tube of certain musical wind instruments, such as the trumpet or oboe

4. any musical percussion instrument emitting a ringing tone, such as a glockenspiel, one of a set of hand bells, etc

5. Nautical a signal rung on a ship's bell to count the number of half-hour intervals during each of six four-hour watches reckoned from midnight. Thus, one bell may signify 12.30, 4.30, or 8.30 am or pm

6. See diving bell

7. Biology a structure resembling a bell in shape, such as the corolla of certain flowers or the body of a jellyfish

8. bell, book, and candle instruments used formerly in excommunications and other ecclesiastical acts

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bell²

a bellowing or baying cry, esp that of a hound or a male deer in rut

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Bell

1. Acton, Currer , and Ellis. pen names of the sisters Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë

2. Alexander Graham. 1847--1922, US scientist, born in Scotland, who invented the telephone (1876)

3. Sir Francis Henry Dillon. 1851--1936, New Zealand statesman; prime minister of New Zealand (1925)

4. Gertrude (Margaret Lowthian). 1868--1926, British traveller, writer, and diplomat; secretary to the British High Commissioner in Baghdad (1917--26)

5. Joshua. born 1967, US violinist

6. (Susan) Jocelyn, married name Jocelyn Burnell, born 1943, British radio astronomer, who discovered the first pulsar

7. Vanessa, original name Vanessa Stephen. 1879--1961, British painter; a member of the Bloomsbury group, sister of Virginia Woolf and wife of the art critic Clive Bell (1881--1964)

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bell [bel]

(engineering)

A hollow metallic cylinder closed at one end and flared at the other; it is used as a fixed-pitch musical instrument or signaling device and is set vibrating by a clapper or tongue which strikes the lip.

bell tap

(metallurgy)

A conical device that seals the top of a blast furnace.

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bell

passing bell; rung to indicate demise. [Christian Tradition: Jobes, 198]

See : Death

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1.		BELL - An early system on the IBM 650 and Datatron 200 series. Versions: BELL L2, BELL L3. [Listed in CACM 2(5):16 (May 1959)].
2.	(company)	Bell - Bell Telephone or Bell Laboratories.
3.	(character)	bell - ASCII 7, ASCII mnemonic "BEL", the character code which prodces a standard audibile warning from the computer or terminal. In the teletype days it really was a bell, since the advent of the VDU it is more likely to be a sound sample (e.g. the sound of a bell) played through a loudspeaker. Also called "G-bell", because it is typed as Control-G. The term "beep" is preferred among some microcomputer hobbyists. Compare feep, visible bell.