The bells at York

[newshound]

I'm told that historically, becoming a ringer was one way that the more atheistic and/or bolshy parishioners got out of attending services without attracting social opprobrium.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I refer you to the 'call to prayer' broadcast from mosques and other minarets.

WEll it has to do with who was here first, you, the custom of bell-ringing, or gangsta rap.

>

[tony sayer]

In article , Bill Wright scribeth thus

Done!...

[alan_m]

Including compulsory attendance at the parish church.

[harry]

Somebody has.

[Norman Wells]

So, in your view, the first to commit a Statutory Nuisance has the right to continue doing so, and has precedence over all others who may want to?

[Max Demian]

private? There's no

Why not disband all the orchestras? There must be multiple recordings of every classical piece in every significant interpretation by now.

[Tim Watts]

I like church bells and I do not regard them as a statutory nuisance.

If you don't like church bells, don't live leave a church. Ditto cockerels, "country smells", etc.

[Norman Wells]

The numbers are diminishing every year for all sorts of reasons, including that one.

Anyway, do people listen to church bells because of the joy of a live performance and the thrill of slight nuances in the third tenor or whatever it may be called?

Somehow, I rather doubt it.

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message , Norman Wells writes: []

Well, one difference, though probably not germane to this discussion, is that gangsta rap, like many forms of music from about the 1930s onwards, depends for its nature on electronic amplification, whereas bells don't.

They see it as part of "village life", or some similar concept. While in practice many of them would not in fact be able to tell whether it was real or a recording (if good quality and coming from the belfry), most of them would be seriously cross if they discovered that the latter _was_ the case.

[Tim Streater]

Not round here it isn't. And most of the local bell-ringers don't attend church anyway.

[Norman Wells]

Indeed. That makes them even more unpleasant. You can't just go up there and pull the plug.

Well, that's totally irrational of course, so I won't pay it any heed. It's impossible to deal satisfactorily with nutters.

[Huge]

Spot on.

[Ian Jackson]

In message , pamela writes

They are probably singing the right notes - but not necessarily in right order.

[Max Demian]

A recording of church bells would probably feature nasty distortion like ice cream vans cranked up to maximum volume.

[Norman Wells]

They could always turn the bells down to avoid it. But I doubt if they've thought of that. You see, all they want to do is make the maximum amount of noise.

[Alan Dawes]

Surely this is what you would expect as Arabic musical tuning is different to modern western equal temperament tuning. As we are indoctrinated by familiarity into the latter system any other sounds strange but is not wrong.

Similarly if Mozart or Haydn or Beethoven heard a piano or harpsichord with modern equal temperament tuning, they would consider it to be bland and to an extent out of tune. Many years ago I went to a meeting of the Association for Science Education at the London College of Furniture which taught restoration and tuning of pianos and harpsichords. By the end of the tuning course the sudents were expected to be proficient in at least 9 tuning systems and aware of about half a dozen others. The evening ended with illustrations of various piano pieces by Mozart and Beethoven played on 4 pianos with different tuning systems. The differences were quite marked when heard like that.

Alan

[AnthonyL]

If you and your ancestors had been playing gangster rap in set locations for the past 400yrs and some jobsworth said shut up because your new neighbour has raised a complaint you would be on here moaning about your rights.

[Norman Wells]

And he would be saying, perfectly reasonably, 'at last we have a law that means these people who have been a bloody nuisance can be stopped'.

I don't see why causing a nuisance over any period of time should entitle you to continue it.

[AnthonyL]

You'd have thought that but the parishioners and locals raised the money for a replacement of the cracked tenor bell. When the ringing stopped after the fall out the complaints were "why aren't the bells being rung? - we've just paid out for a new bell". And the (relatively new) houses are fairly close too - basically think suburb to one side.

A full peal (just less than 3hrs of continuous ringing) was rung by a proficient band recently, the first there for over 20yrs, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the loss of 3 soldiers on the same day from what would then have been little more than a big village.

Advanced publicity was put about and several folk came to the church to listen. To the best of my knowledge there were no complaints.

Seems as if some do really enjoy the old English traditions being upheld.