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AllChimes.org The
Tower Bell Chimers Web Site. |
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The evolution of AllChimes - 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.. Chimers now know where to climb those ladders and stairs, use those pump handles, ropes or keyboards, all doing it differently, all doing it right and sharing stories, laughs and excitement over their historical craft.. Kudos to those who figured it out. How unfortunate and sometimes costly that an AllChimes took so long to happen. 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. Now called a chime crawl. 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 chime crawlers 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). How could I make valid suggestions on maintenance, repairs and upgrades without having performed some myself? I have done a little, and have gained the highest respect for those who actually perform such work. My conclusion is that you have to sift thru every proposal and decide what you actually need, want and can afford. Electrified chimes have the most maintenance problems, (an understatement) often are not repaired, then abandoned, 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. From experience, ALWAYS keep the manual capability of your chime. The companies that do repairs do excellent work. Sometimes their salesmen, in their desire to give you a 100% modern job, seem to oversell you. That may not always be necessary. Get a time frame for the work. They seem expensive at times, but experiencing 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. It makes a more complete 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 250 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. Not all comments are complimentary. 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. A time table for helpful additions always gets delayed.The e-mail maintenance and ability for mass emailings has been a failure. HELP!!! Getting music and transposition is another project. HELP!!! Locations are kept in an updateable dBase file. It has its own menu and
many programs which were written before the newer programming languages came
along. They aint broke, are sometimes complicated, so don't even think about
changing from dBase. New sites are added to the dBase file and assigned the next number. There are
over 1400 now. Maybe you are bored, but chimers now know where to climb those ladders and stairs, use those pump handles, ropes or keyboards, all doing it differently, all doing it right and sharing stories, laughs and excitement over their historical craft.. Kudos to those who figured it out. How unfortunate and sometimes costly that an AllChimes took so long to happen. Joe Connors, accidental tower chime historian |
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