https://www.hibberts.co.uk/ Skip to content Main Navigation The Sound of Bells * The Sound of Bells * Wavanal * PhD Thesis * Contact * Current Research * Links * Building a bell sound * Classic papers on bell tuning * Bell recordings collection * Steel bells * Stretch tuning * Taylors of Loughborough * William Dobson * Bell weights, sizes and frequencies * Recording and analysis * Individual sets of bells * How bells make their sound * PhD Thesis The Sound of Bells The bell is one of the oldest, and certainly is the loudest of, musical instruments. The sound of a bell has the power to charm, to amaze, to warn, to frighten, and to lift the spirit. Bells are ubiquitous even in our electronic age. And yet the way in which a bell produces its sound is complex, and even such a simple question as which note a bell sounds can have surprising and unexpected answers. This website describes investigations over many year into the sound and tuning of bells. In the early stages of research I developed a software package (Wavanal) which allows easy investigation into bell acoustics. The software is free and can be downloaded here. In April 2008 I was awarded a PhD by The Open University based on research into the musical acoustics of bells, and in particular the note we hear when a bell is rung. The full text of the thesis and introductory articles are available on this site. Since completing the PhD the research has continued. I have a growing collection of over 8,800 bell recordings with dates spanning 9 centuries, hundreds of founders and many countries which I use for ongoing investigations. Regular updates to this site document recent investigations. For an introduction, including lots of bell sounds to listen to, click here. What's new? * Bell recordings collection19th April 2022 This page gives statistics by founder and date of my collection of bell recordings. [...] Read More... from Bell recordings collection * Strike notes and tuning of old-style bells21st February 2022 Investigation of the tuning of 23 historic peals of eight and ten showing their strike pitches were tuned more accurately than expected, followed by a review of the few written accounts of historic methods of bell tuning. [...] Read More... from Strike notes and tuning of old-style bells * The tuning of Westminster Abbey tenor31st January 2022 Detailed records taken when the tenor of Westminster Abbey was tuned in 1971 show the impossibility of independent tuning of upper partials. [...] Read More... from The tuning of Westminster Abbey tenor * Tonal analysis from recordings29th January 2022 How to do a tonal analysis of a bell from a recording of it. [...] Read More... from Tonal analysis from recordings * Merthyr Tydfil bells7th January 2022 Visited: Bill Hibbert 31 August 2002 This is a historically very important ring from the Taylor bellfoundry. The tower website used to say: "The bells were cast by John Taylor, Loughborough in 1893, and were only the second ring (after Norton, Sheffield) to be tuned by the 'Simpson Principle'." In fact the bells were cast in [...] Read More... from Merthyr Tydfil bells The Sound of Bells 2022.