Ring Dem Bells

Mayo Clinic's Carillonneur, Jeffrey Daehn, will be here in Shelby this weekend to put on a special presentation tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon at 2:30 up at the Marias Heritage Center. A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in the bell tower (belfry) of a church or municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to produce a melody, or sounded together to play a chord. A traditional manual carillon is played by striking a keyboard-the stick-like keys of which are called batons-with the fists, & by pressing the keys of a pedal keyboard with the feet. The keys mechanically activate levers & wires that connect to metal clappers that strike the inside of the bells, allowing a performer such as Jeffrey to vary the intensity of the note according to the force applied to the key. The carillon is the heaviest of all extant musical instruments. The large carillon Jeff plays out at the Mayo Clinic high atop the Plummer Builder in Rochester, Minnesota, consists of 56 bells & offers a range of 4.5 octaves. The largest bell weighs in at 4 tons while the smallest bell weights 17 pounds. What makes the carillon a unique instrument is that the bells don't swing. Instead, they are fixed to supporting beams & the clappers hit the sides of the bells to make the ringing sound. This is way different that the infamous "Clapper" we all see advertised on TV every Christmas season. I'm not sure how Jeff is going to get all this stuff into the Sun Room at the Heritage tomorrow afternoon but being an Iron Man with a strong back, I volunteered to help him because he is my friend. It promises to be a fascinating & delightful performance tomorrow at 2:30 a the Marias Heritage Center here in Shelby.. Hope to see you Sunday afternoon at 2:30 for world famous carillonneur, Jeffrey Daehn. Ring Dem Bells, Jeff!