I randomly decided to take Guitar 110: Beginning Guitar (2 credits) this semester. Everyone in my family was confused. My friends didn’t think I was a “guitar person,” and when I tell people I’m taking a guitar class, they just say, “Why?” with a look of genuine concern and confusion on their faces.
I’m not sure why it seems so odd, but I was starving for something creative. The art classes here are so competitive that you basically need a billion credits to get in. Guitar was one of the few artistic options I could access, and I was curious. I think it’s safe to say that I absolutely love it. If you have time and a guitar (or a willingness to buy one), go for it!
You’re probably wondering what guitar has to do with Burton Memorial Tower.
Well, there’s one day each semester when guitar students (and most likely students in other instrument classes) get a tour of the tower’s top floor where the bells live. It was nice to get to see the top since we’ve had class in the tower all semester.
I got to see the bells. You know, the ones that are constantly ringing every fifteen minutes with the occasional fun performance in the middle of the day?
I got to stand underneath a bell when it was ringing, with headphones, of course. I value my hearing.
I even got to ring the bells with my classmates until the tour guide said, “Okay guys, let’s not get too enthusiastic now.”
I called my mom right after giggling like a maniac. It was so fun and exciting, and I don’t know entirely why still, but I know that it’s something I’ll never forget.
I’m not sure how to get a tour without a music class, but I do know that the tower puts on concerts on weekdays at noon. This gives people a chance to see the bells since the top floor opens to the public. You can find more details on SMTD’s website, under the Carillon concert events.
To reach the top, you take the very slow elevator (or the stairs, if you’re an animal) to the eighth floor, and just keep taking the stairs until you get to the very top.
At the top, you have an absolutely magnificent view of central campus and fifty-three bells above and around you. The larger, deeper bells sit at face level while the smaller, higher-pitched ones are near the top.
Instead of the bells swinging when they’re played, which is what I always pictured, the bells instead ring when metal clappers strike the inside of the bell. Some hammers hit the outside of the largest bell for the hourly chimes, which are automatic and don’t involve a person hitting them. The same goes for the chimes that go off every fifteen minutes.
Apparently the largest bell weighs twelve tons. When the tour guide told me that, for some reason I got an immediate mental image of De la Cruz in Coco getting crushed by a bell—yikes. After the tour guide mentioned the weight of the bells, he said that the carillon was made in England and shipped over to Michigan in the 1930s. I can’t imagine how heavy the ship that brought them over was if all the bells together weighed about 43 tons. It was interesting to see that the bells also had writing etched on them, usually “ENGLAND” or what looked like the names of cities in England.
When the bells are manually played, a carillonneur plays a special keyboard located in a cabin just below the bells. The carillonneur (say that five times fast) presses down keys, which are wooden levers. The bigger the bell, the heavier the lever, so heavier notes take much more effort to play. There are also pedals, similar to a piano, and each key and pedal is connected to a bell’s clapper via wires. When in the cabin, I saw that the wires were visually connected to each key on the keyboard and extended into the ceiling. It was pretty cool to see that there’s absolutely no electricity involved in something so intricate.
I never thought that I would play a carillon in my life, but here I am. I got to check off something I never realized was on my bucket list, because how many people can say that they’ve actually played the bells in a bell tower?
Before you graduate, I highly recommend stopping by the bell tower for a concert. It’s so interesting to learn about, and the experience is like one you’d never get again!