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AllChimes.org ..... All Tower Bells
..... Chimes our specialty. |
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Message - from the perpetrator of this web site. Chimers and chime institutions, historians and web surfers now have a vehicle to consult for anything chimes. The vacuum was complete. I didn't even know there was another chime in my own city, much less five others. That's how much of a vacuum we were in.. A few others have caught the bug and are visiting towers, sending pictures and reports. Even revisiting a tower after five or ten years yields information needing to be updated. I can see them traveling in packs of 2,3 or 4 for a days outing. The major conclusion (from trial and error) is that chimers can fraternize efficiently and inexpensively over the internet. Everyone will eventually have e-mail anyway. It became obvious that the best method to visit these places was to drop in on them unannounced (during the week). Conventional wisdom to make appointments, etc. didn't work. Weekend warriors should do the opposite and make arrangements ahead by email. The general reception has been a noticeably friendlier attitude from the Protestants than my own Catholics. It is also true on upkeep and use of their chimes. The gap widens as the church gets larger. Just observations, not indictments. The chimer or custodian, music director, organist and occasional Pastor have been my best contacts (in that order). Electrified chimes have the most maintenance problems, but the manual chimes have the most problems getting players. Some manual sets have many chimers, so will have to find out how they do it. The companies that do repairs usually do a very good job. Just getting them there to do it or get it done on schedule is a problem. They seem expensive at times, but seeing the tower problems they encounter to get your job done makes me think that you sometimes are getting a bargain. Bells in general are a special thing to many people. I have been asked to put on programs and do so on occasion. There are a lot of smaller municipal areas outside where your chime is, but not your bell knowledge is always there. I tried a bell talk as a substitute for a chime talk only 10 miles outside town. It was staggeringly successful because I asked them for a list of all their local bells, photographed them and gave a talk on their manufacturers, use, condition and stuff. I left out one bell on purpose and smugly asked which one it was. They remembered five before the one I purposely missed. I will try to work up a program that school kids could do during summer vacation for a fun local history project. When I did my first chime visit and video in 1993, somebody asked what was I going to accomplish. There was no answer. I knew less than I thought I knew, which wasn't much anyway, but learned quickly from the people I met and the records they were aware of. Ed Kehn, Eugene Burns, Carl Zimmerman, the Meneelys, musicians of all capabilities, people from all walks of life who have a connection with bells, e-mail, the world wide web. They have all contributed to my knowledge and the ability to enjoy and share it. Until we see what tomorrow brings, enjoying and sharing this knowledge looks like a good answer. I watched my father play the chimes at St. Patrick's in Troy in around 1944-1954 and often asked him to let me play them. "No, you will make mistakes", he said. He has passed on and he was right. The public hears you practice and play. Does one little mistake get their attention that you are playing? The first clues for locations of chime sites came from Gene Burns, a West Troy addict who lived next door to the Alfred Meneely family in Watervliet as a kid. Then Ed Kehn (in his late 80's), a third generation Kehn who worked for the Clinton Meneely foundry. Ed had a Meneely Day Book which listed every bell Meneely ever made. I scoured it for chime sites and found 165 of them. Being a main-frame programmer, I started a data base with them. Then I joined the Guild of Carillonneurs of North America, as they were the only bell playing group I could find. They didn't associate with us lowly 8-12 bell under funded chimers very much, but now appreciate us after all. Carl Zimmerman, the statistic guru of that group also added chimes and rings to his statistics as he ran across them, much the same as I have added glockenspiels and tubular chimes. We have shared information ever since. More info for the data base. One out of every 8 or 10 chime sites also has a tower clock. They looked (and are) mysteriously complicated. I was curious, but didn't want to mess any of them up, so I joined the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, a huge group with its own tower clock chapter. Then I started visiting and video taping chimes outside of Troy. West Point, New York City, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Nova Scotia, Ontario all followed. Well over 150 of them. Every site visited is updated in the data base with factual data and sometimes my own impressions of the site. There are some real doozies. The major repair people have since welcomed me with open arms and shared most information I asked for. It was suggested that I write a book, but my vision (right or wrong) is to put everything on or make it available thru this web site. That way, everything is current, along with corrections. The web site - a battle unknown. I promised people that this site would be up in January of 2001, not March of 2002. Being a main frame programmer and a PC web page designer are two different worlds of education. Fortunately, I stumbled across Comp USA and took many courses there which got me this far. I know better than to predict a time table for helpful additions.Running this by e-mail and the web presents its own set of problems. The e-mail maintenance and secrecy of e-mail addresses is in the works. Getting some pictures on the site is done. Getting music and transposition is another project. Storing of the Pictures, Written Documents and Videos that come here.
I have hit on continuing the scheme of my original database, which is still in
use. Maybe you are bored, but chimers now have a place to climb those ladders and stairs, use those pump handles or keyboards, find out they are all doing it differently, find out that they are all doing it right and share stories and laughs. Kudos to those who figured it out. How unfortunate that all of us had no AllChimes to give us a boost in knowledge and morale. Joe Connors, accidental chime historian |
Send mail to ALLCHIMES @ aol.com
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questions or comments about this web site. 11/21/2012
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