Roll-playing Carillon
By Dan Wilson
Adam Ramet said:
> In our property law lecture the other day the lecturer told us that
> across the road from the University here the church has a self-playing
> carillon. Roll-player or pinned I can't say. Apparently the
> religious sisters who owned all the land around here and built the
> church had it installed, as in their opinion "human bell-ringers (in
> their experience) would always end up drinking at the pub on Sundays,"
> apparently something for which they themselves had no tolerance for,
> on a Sunday especially. I hope to pay the church a visit soon.
London organ tuner and player piano expert Michael Broadway services a roll-playing carillon for a church. From what I recall of what he's told me, it was evidently made up from player piano parts around 1931. Rather amusingly, its trackerbar is a Duo-Art, only the central two octaves being used. There is only one, purpose-made, roll which plays a dignified cadence for four minutes.
Broadway has offered to get some more rolls made, without much interest being shown. I asked him, "What would happen if we put a fox-trot roll on?" He looked at me: "They would be very disappointed in me."
Dan Wilson
[ Make it a song with lots of ap-peal ! ;-) -- Robbie
|
|
