Which songs actually sound in tune on bells?
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- Опубліковано 1 чер 2024
- Music on bells can often seem out of tune, but are there songs that actually sound perfectly in tune? Join me as we search for a musical scale that fully encompasses the minor third overtones of bells and discover the octatonic scale.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:19 Major or Minor?
1:20 Minor scale overtones
3:12 How about modal scales?
3:57 Diminished chord
4:27 Expanding the diminished chord into a scale
5:11 Overtones of the octatonic scale
6:32 How many octatonic scales are there?
7:25 Triads & 7ths in octatonic scale
7:48 An octatonic song?
8:50 Analyzing octatonic measures
10:57 How often to play octatnic music?
11:52 John Courter's Fantasia Octatonica
16:10 Bye!
Want to know more about the minor 3rd on bells? Check out my first video on this topic ;-)
• Why do bells sound out...
Sheet music for John Courter's Fantasia Octatonica:
www.gcna.org/music-store#!/PD...
Other songs utilized in this video:
Tiny Dancer, Elton John: • Tiny Dancer, Elton Joh...
Imperial March: • Star Wars on Bells
Interested in learning more about the octatonic scale? Here's a great video by a really great channel: • Pieces Of Eight: Myste...
Interested in supporting the channel? Consider becoming a channel member for just a few $ a month. Check out the offer by clicking the "join" button.
all the people in town while this video is being made: WHAT THE HELL TIME IS IT
Music time!
It's ଐଃ:ଠଠ Æ. Ì\/Í . THE END NIGH
"everyone in a 1 mile radius" for the love of god....he is making a new video.
Is no one else bothered by the inverted use of quotation marks here?
@@jneal4154 i am
@@jneal4154now I am, I didn't even notice
@@jneal4154 How "dare" you!
@@jneal4154I clicked on this comment to reply the same thing.
"Hey i have this idea for an instrument that sound wrong except for four notes..."
"Deal, let's built one the size of a building."
what
what
what
what
what
So I’m a retired professional bassoonist that now works at a university, and twice a day the bells on campus play our school song (in D major I think) and it drives crazy because because its so out of tune, especially the last few notes which just go down the major scale and land on tonic. Now I understand why and it makes so much sense.
Yours is not the only school that does this and not the only school song that sounds bad when it's done
@@Altoclarinetsyou are not the only guy that is considering this:))
Hm I like it. The thirds are faint enough for me to sound tasteful
I wonder if , now that you know the problem, you can compose a variant melody that is still recognizable as the school song, that skips the most offensive notes.
When I was in grad school at the University of Illinois, they played the school song a lot on the Altgeld Hall bells. I always thought it sounded wrong…
Various tongue-in-cheek performances sounded better, such as bits of the theme from The Flintstones…
I think this song would be a total vibe at night when it's raining.
If I had a bell tower I would totally play spooky sounding music on dark stormy nights.
The masculine urge to live isolated in a old spacious manor accompanied by a bell tower only you can operate on top of a hill that overlooks just an average town and on some occasions when you feel a grim presence enveloping the land you play a misfortunate sounding jingle and remain enigmatic to the townspeople
Or in a cemetery in the night
My people 🥲
Why does this guy look like a Disney character
I don't know, but he makes sound a bell
Why is your pfp a table-
the nose, the big eyes from the glasses, the teeth sticking out, the haircut.. yep, checks out
@@joseelempecinao89huh
HOLY SHIT I was about to comment the same thing!! He doesss!!
Now I finally learned how to make use of all those bell sounds that are included in synths!
If they have the same minor third thing going on lots of synths use fm synths that can be out of tune or tuned to completely random sounds but still sound like bells
Ogun in FL studio has some aggregious bells sounds that i never understood why they sounded so out of tune until now
We should band together and commission more octatonic winter festival music. I imagine one can only play Carol of the Bells so many times
Hi Joey, I am a professional chamber choir singer from the Netherlands. Only last month, I did a project with Syrian musicians. One of them played the qanun (a kind of cyther), which at times made me think of church bells. And NOW it clicked: Arabic scales are octatonic! To extend your repertoire I would highly suggest you dive into how Arabic scales and maqams work.
Boy I was not expecting to hear about John Courter when I clicked this video! I attended Berea College from 2001-05 and was a member of the percussion section in a few of their music ensembles, so I got to meet and talk to Dr. Courter quite a few times! I knew he was an accomplished organist and carillion player, but I had no idea how prolific he was!
great that you knew him! he was a great guy
John Williams loves using the octotonic scale a lot. That and Hungarian minor.
No wonder I thought this sounded “Star Wars”-ey!
Correct me if I'm wrong, I think ua-cam.com/video/DqF9guoiGd4/v-deo.html makes extensive use of it?
That piece seems out of a Film Noir like a good old Maigret episode, mysterious and creepy.
my city's bell tower often plays pop songs with power "chords" as chords and it hurts every time
a Messiaen-style piece would sound incredible on bells, since he used the octatonic scale (and similar symetric scales) a lot in his music
Our city hall has this in your face happy G major melody playing on bells every day at 6PM and i happen to live close by. Thinking of me figuring it out on guitar and watching this video now unexpectedly taught me a lot and i love that
I wish I had these videos a couple years ago when I started learning how to play the Carillon. These will be incredible resources for people learning how to play these instruments.
How do you learn the carillion. I do know there are Pianos with the Hardware of a carillion but how do you find one of these and a teacher ?
@@JackAkaJCK In America, usually universities I think. I learned at The University of Texas at Austin, where there is a student ran Guild of Carillonneurs. We only really had a teacher for a year though, he ended up going to Chicago.
Some universities have dedicated faculty for the Carillon and offer classes for students, but mine was mostly student led and student taught. You basically had to learn on your own in a week and pass an audition lol.
UT Austin has a practice carillon as well, but its more of a vibraphone than a piano.
Thanks UA-cam algorytm to bring me to this very niche video that i absolutelly didnt knew i need ( not ironically)
Yeah yeah yeah, bells this bells that- why is nobody talking about how he has the most gorgeous smile 😭
white men have y’all weak
You're not wrong.. very distracting lol
he is definitely a cutie patootie
Just by Radiohead uses the octatonic scale because, as you said, it enables you to use a lot of different types of chords, and the original porpose of that song was to compose anything with as many chords as possible while sounding good. It was a kind of challenge between Johnny Greenwood and Thom Yorke.
These videos have seriously rocked my musical understanding for the rest of my life.
This is so interesting to me. I recently started learning guitar using all major thirds tuning (C E Ab C E Ab C) for regularity and less stretchy fingers, but one thing I didn't expect was to suddenly be able to "resolve" to an augmented chord (all open strings) using two descending diminished chords a whole tone apart as passing chords, but when I tried to replicate it on it piano, it didn't sound nearly as good.
Well, this video answered both why the augmented chord sounds good on my guitar and why that diminished trick works: The sympathetic vibrations of the open strings amplify the major thirds from the open augmented chord just like the natural partials in the bells amplify the minor thirds, and that octatonic scale (is it also called a diminished scale by jazz people, perchance?) is just a hotbed for leading tones (literally half of the intervals are semitones).
I wonder how a duet of a hammered dulcimer tuned entirely in thirds and a carillon would sound if they just played augmented and diminished chords at each other: like a pleasant conversation or an argument?
All this makes me think about is tuning a piano with one of the strings being a minor third higher. Just so you can have a bell piano.
Wonder if that's ever been done to compose music for bells without having to annoy the whole town.
cool idea!
a synth would be much more easy than tuning piano strings.
@@spakkajackyeah, but it’d be cooler on a physical piano
Carillon practice claviers (keyboards) use a piano type action with the hammers hitting glockenspiel bars.
Probably no pianos, but I'm sure there is a pipe organ with mixture with this tuning/temperment somewhere out in the wild
The octotonic scale kinda breaks tonality by virtue of being a mode of least transposition. But gaining harmoniousness on bells seems a good tradeoff!
Fallen down from the video game undertale is intentionally played out of tune
I am delighted with your videos. Despite being a doctor, I am also an organist and there are many similarities between the carillon and the organ. I have learned a lot. I became a fan. I'm very sorry that there are only 3 carillons in Portugal and that there is no announcement of when I can hear them.
Em Mafra é todos os domingos às 17:30 😉
Em Mafra é todos os domingos às 17h30 😉
So you could say… you have a lot of experience with organs
I remember playing in a highschool freshman state honor band and we played a special piece made in the octatonic scale. It’s called Octamarch by Joshua Hobbs.
If I recall, it wasn’t entirely in the octatonic scale, but most of it was - and it created that lovely octatonic scale sound.
Absolutely fascinating! Excellent explanation and a wonderful song.
Dude that piece was AWESOME! 👏 👏 👏
Wow this is beautiful! I never knew about the octatonic scale, but now I'm in a rabbit hole to hear more of it!
Great informative and well edited and explained video, I really love it
This is exactly the video I've been wanting to see since your "Why do bells sound out of tune" video. Fantastic!
Absolutely fascinating! I love learning more about this instrument. That final performance was an experience. So right sounding in the oddest way.
First time UA-cam recommends me your channel. Simply amazing! I'm not that great at musical theory, but could grasp and understand most of what you said, and you explained it in a really nice way.
that's great to hear!
Really neat info!!
this is an excellent video which manages to explain easy concepts in music very effectively and quickly. bravo
really interesting, thank you for making this!
Wow, what a composition! Fantasia Octatonica is an incredible piece that perfectly captures the feeling of a waking dream. Thank you for introducing me to John Courter, I am definitely going to listen to more of his work
This video is quite lovely, and greatly educational! Im gladder than glad to find new concepts to explore in music theory, even if sometimes it can feel as if I have seen it all (though I've surely not.) Thank you for opening my eyes to something new to explore, especially in such an intriguing and entertaining way!!
Wow, this is so informative! Never heard of octatonic scales before and I am also not musically well trained enough to recognize a flat 3rd in overtones / timbres of sounds, but I definitely could hear that what sounded somewhat unearthing on piano really sounded awesome on bells. I play synths as a hobby so now I am going to try if if octatonic scales sound good with bell sounds on synths.
I already knew the theory but still, you beautifully demonstrated it and I really feel like I have a deeper understanding now. Thank you for these videos
Good to know one of my favorite scales sounds perfect on one of my favorite Huge Instruments!! The octatonic scale is a staple of metalcore music, which I’ve always been a big fan of, so it’s neat to see it out there in other applications!!
Very interesting video and I loved your performance at the end. Though, it made me wonder how you practice playing pieces you don't know on a carillion without having the whole neighborhood listen to your practice session 😅
GREAT question! I've got a video planned for that ;-)
@joeybrinkbells a question in a similar vain, are there any regulations on when you can play?
certainly! there are playing restrictions at most any bell tower, times of day when the public can expect bells and when they expect not to hear them. Here in Denver, my playing hour is usually around noon
Practice instruments are available. They use standard carillon claviers (keyboards) with a piano type action. The bells are replaced with metal glockenspiel type bars.
Great video and great explanations! Also, in addition to the other musical genres and tunes suggested in the comments, I suggest maybe trying some bebop. Some bop tunes make use of diminished scales a lot, which I think are octatonic scales.
The piece at the end sounds dramatically haunting because of the bells. Something you would expect in a vampire movie or game.
Or as general background to an abandoned cathedral, or ruined castle.
Wow the second song you played, sounds so Halloween themed, it’s not funny, I find it’s actually gorgeous. ❤
I immediatly thought of 'for whom the bell tolls' since metallica down tuned their guitars to better suit the Bell sample but this video quickly explained that has nothing to do with the actual issue at hand.
wasn't it actually hitting anvil with hammer combined with some bell effect?
Very interesting video. You have a clear and concise way of explaining things. That with your calming voice and chill demeanor must foster a wonderful learning environment for your students. Thank you for sharing. Also, do you play for the commencement address?
I play for University of Denver commencements, yes! As well as lots of regional high school graduations that graduate at DU Ritchie Center
chill?
@@Fire_Axus Another word for relaxed.
That song at the end was amazing. And I learned a bit more theory too. Win win ❤
I would absolutely love living near one of these
You know when you look at someone and then look up their chosen profession and your first thought is "yup, that makes complete sense" that's what I first thought when i clicked this video. You were put on this earth to play bells
This really explains the weird beauty of bells!! The full piece at the end is captivating, it must sound so weird on any other instrument!
brilliant, thanks it would be nice to hear what it sounds like from outside the church.
thank you
This randomly popped up for me so I checked out your other videos, if you still do requests I’d love to hear the themes to the Star Trek tv shows
Thanks Joey, you made the music more interesting. You could also talk about the keyboards and the way you have to use it to make it a good interpretation. It looks quite demanding on you; also when can you play, anytime or is there restrictions because bells are outside and some people may not like the distraction that it represents. Those are ideas that would interest me and others I am certain..
thank you for the ideas! I hadn't considered a video on playing time restrictions, but that's actually a great idea
Your explanations are wildly interesting! Is the minor third overtone the property of the shape of the bell? If bells had a different shape would they still have the minor third overtone?
Commenting so that I get the answer to this question too, I'm curious now :)
watch his video "why do bells sound out of tune" for the answers :)
yes, the shape of the bell is what gives the minor third overtone. I haven't really gotten into this yet. I'm planning a video on bell shapes for later, but it might be a while before that one comes out
I'm very interested in hearing (some of ) those arranging tricks to get the music to sound better on bells. Maybe another video?
And are there any carrions that allow any sort of way to mute or soften the bells after they ring?
Yep, I'll plan a video on arranging tricks for major/minor keys. Might be a while before I get to those, but it will happen! And no, there aren't any carillons with dampers :-)
The sound of that carillon always reminds me of Uni. There was one that would occasionally play somewhere on campus, not quite sure where. I always wondered how people learnt how to play, since you don't exactly want to be broadcasting your practice to everyone just going about their day!
6:20 Am I the only one or does the octatonic scale sounds humorous and almost funny towards its end?
Having grown up in the Low Countries, where the carillon has been a part of the urban soundscape for centuries, I am so used to these "dissonances" that they don't really bother me all that much. 🙂
Hey, big upgrade on the piano this time around 😉 great video
Yes! Thank you!
WHat I was missing wrt info is the following. A "normal" bell has the strike tone and humming tone (this is a bit as the pedal note on a trombone (that I play)) as the most important imho. But soon besides the third and fourth in the octoave above that (besides the octave strike note) ther are many more notes (we get fouths twelveths etc etc) that come into play and depending on how loud they are wrt the strike note will also impact tuning.
Is it just me or does this guy look like a pixar character?
not just you he totally does
He really does, this is the second comment I've seen saying that, glad I'm not the only one
Did anyone notice the pencil by his left foot? Any way, beautiful playing! Haunting song!
you should try something from incantation and dance by john barnes chance as it is based off of the octatonic scale!
I am down for more carillon content.
Couldn't you build a bell where the main inharmonic overtone is a major third above the fundamental, a so-called "major bell"? Then couldn't you build a diatonic Carillon with a mix of minor and major bells such that the overtones all land in the scale? Has anyone done this?
there are major bells, yes, but I've never heard of mixing both major and minor bells in one instrument. Really interesting idea!
I think that's a great idea!
I did not understand much but you look passioned
Very informative. Do you know whether the partials from other types of bells (e.g. tubular bells/chimes, or Tibetan singing bowls) have the same series as church-bells? Or in other words, Is the church-bell shape specifically chosen to create that series of partials, whereas a different shape could be chosen for a completely different set?
right, it's all about the shape! So tubular bells or bowls will have different overtones :-)
Fun fact Just by Radiohead is a great song in an octatonic (diminished) scale
Was thinking exactly that! Trouble is I can’t find anyone who has ever covered any radiohead song on a set of bells! 😂
@@arghjayem yeah, exactly😂
I like the "dissonances" in Bells, so efforts in avoiding them removes the very thing I find enchanting. I enjoy Gamelan.
That's amazingly played! Love your videos. This piece is extremely clever in my opinion. Utilizing the bell overtone is something that I could never thought of. Eye-opening, truly a masterpiece!
Hi, following your derivation of the octatonic scale, I wonder why not to simply use the chromatic scale? What is the advantage of the octatonic scale over the chromatic one?
Does it provide more orientation around a tonal center? I am not sure... when listening to you playing the octatonic piece, I (living mainly in the major and minor world) get lost from the beginning on.🤔 Impressive instrument and playing by the way.
great question! The chromatic scale would certainly work, and it certainly does! Much of the 20th century romantic carillon music used chromatic flourishes liberally. They're quite nice. But when it comes to harmony and voice leading and chord progressions, I find the octatonic scale easier to work in than chromatic. Maybe having some limitations (8 notes instead of 12), makes it easier for me when composing, to more reliably write something interesting. Whereas with 12 notes, I find it harder to write in a compelling way without accidentally falling back into major/minor/modal etc.
OMG! I watched this when it came out, and I work for the University of Florida. Just now, I heard this exact song being played! I wonder if the carillon player and I have been watching the same videos 😁
Maybe! I know some of the players there :-) Courters Fantasia is standard rep for us, though, so odds are you'll probably hear it more often now that you know it :-)
@@joeybrinkbells wonderful! Every time I hear it I will feel proud that I know just a bit more about my town!
sudden hankering for tacos
relatable
4:22 at first i was afraid, i was petrified!
You're the guy who did carillon with Rob Scallon
This video made me think about the Obra Dinn ost. That ost has a ton of bells and it works so well. You should give it a listen!
Especially Soldiers of the Sea
ua-cam.com/video/GadL-6wpp3U/v-deo.htmlsi=-e1zK_iCOFBzGqPQ
Really cool
Wow that part which starts with the f major chord i think at around 13:35min sounds really epic and nice not at all creepy and dissonant
Im thinking someone could make a crazy intense edm drop out of that. Imagine dubstep in 8 note scales and with bells
Residents panicking when they start hearing the galactic imperial march coming from the bells 🤣
Wow, I know it's the whole point, but it's crazy how different the octatonic piece sounds on bells vs piano! The opening especially sounds very moody and jazzy on piano (9:33), and on bells it's so bright and shiny!! (9:42) I have a bit of an ear for jazz, my appetite for dissonance is pretty large compared to most, so the piano doesn't sound *bad,* but the character is just so completely different! In general it sounds kinda similar to some modal music where the tonality isn't ever quite where you think it is, but it all still works amazingly. It makes me think, do concepts like major and minor therefore not mean the same thing on bells? The whole point of major vs minor and different chords and intervals is all about consonance and dissonance, and if your harmonics are NOT the same, doesn't that mean the consonance and dissonance of each group of notes is also fundamentally changed, making words like "minor" and "major" which imply certain levels of dissonance not apply at all? Aren't we then looking at an instrument which falls outside of basically all of western harmonic structure, where a diminished chord, which usually is the darkest and most dissonant kind of triad, is suddenly the most consonant? You're blowing my mind with these videos about bells!!
Right! Exactly! Major and minor on bells really are different than how we're used to hearing them :-)
Hells' Bells! Merci.
I've done it! Just search the channel :-)
My god, can a man talk about his passion without half the comments roasting how he looks... I'm sure he is more put together and attractive than all of you.
Organ at my church still blows my mind
That sir is a belfry
I guess to make this work, the bells have to be designed to have tempered minor thirds, which are not actually 6/5, but in between 19/16 and 25/21. Now if you had 19 equal divisions of the octave, then the minor thirds would be nearly just 6/5, because 19 equal divisions of the octave is just a fraction of a cent flat of 1/3-comma meantone, and would be exactly 1/3-comma meantone with very slight stretching of the octave. But then that would require a redesign of the bells to match, and 1.5X as many of them, which would be very expensive, which is also undoubtedly the reason that large instruments with split flat/sharp keys for (usually) quarter-comma meantone were never very common and fell out of favor in the face of instruments with 12 notes per octave, which then pushed the development of well-tempered tuning systems and eventually 12 equal divisions of the octave.
4:18 Watching this while doing homework and this triggered my gravity falls spidey sense
not sure why but the music you played in the end of the video reminds me of the music in Zelda, when link entered the castle!
I saw your little twitch when you said "C flat"
Lol
1:31 Chopin ballade No. 1 in G minor.
13:35 it starts sounding pretty good but ominous.
But I do feel something important is missing. No note or chord carries. There is too little dynamic range. It just does not have the melodicity of more current music.
I believe it could be done but something is off with what I heard here and in other bell plays.
Is it possible to create a bell that has a major third overtone?
yes! Been done a few times, though interestingly people seem to prefer the minor-3rd bells
DIMINISHED SCALE YEAAAH
pleas play some blues on the bells
Please come visit the "Carillon de la Merced" (it's in a tango lyric). People here would never know.....
Is there possibly a place to find the sheet music for Suite No. 1?
oh yes! I meant to link to it in the description. I just added it there. Thanks for reminding me. Pasting it here also:
www.gcna.org/music-store#!/PDF-Suite-No-1-for-Carillon/p/275146991
@@joeybrinkbells thank you very much sir!
Special scale for campanology, let's call it the bell end scale. :) Dont misunderstand me this is really interesting.
Have you ever checked out Barry Harris's techniques for jazz harmony through diminished chords?
Do all bells have minor 3rd overtones? Why is that? Great video!
all bells with this shape have minor overtones. It's the classic bell shape (gothic profile) that yields the overtones. I'll make a video on bell shapes sometime :-)
Sweeeet Carillon... 🎶
Don’t you mean Caroline?
@@GreyKnightsVenerableno