Change ringing is a style of bell ringing developed for large church bells in Britain several hundred years ago. It does not involve ringing a melody on the bells, but rather permuting the order of sounding the bells according to formal rules called methods. Each person controls one bell using a rope, and the entire bell swings in a full circle. Change ringing is done today both on tower bells and on handbells. To ring handbells several people sit in a circle ringing two bells each. Each person rings their bell or bells at the appropriate time so that the set of bells together produce an interesting and pleasant sound.
The MIT Guild of Bellringers rings handbells at MIT and rings the large bells of the Old North Church in Boston. We are always looking for new ringers and would be glad to teach you to ring on handbells or tower bells (or both!).
There will be a special introduction to handbell ringing this Monday, September 7nd (Labor Day), at 7:00pm. Look for information on where posted on the second floor of Lobby 7, near the elevator. Bring your friends. We'll start from the very beginning and teach you to ring changes on handbells.
If you are interested in learning tower bell ringing, or just curious about what it looks and sounds like, or you want to pretend you're Paul Revere and need an excuse to get up the Old North Church steeple, we can arrange that as well. Either drop by on Monday (especially if you also want to learn on handbells) or get in touch with us and we'll arrange a time for this.
If you can't make it Monday or you forget the meeting, just call us up and we'll arrange another time. We ring handbells every Monday evening and you can show up any time. (You might want to call ahead to say you're coming and make sure we're there, but it's not necessary.)
For more information please call Ken Olum or Cally Perry at (617) 784-6114, or send electronic mail to kdo@alum.mit.edu.
You don't need any musical skill or experience to learn change ringing. Please visit our web site at http://web.mit.edu/bellringers/www/