Giant Tubular Bell / Bass Chime for "Tosca"

Puccini liked his low bells...
© 2021 Matt Nolan
www.mattnolancustom.com/

[@danthefugueguy]

Sounds great Matt! Lovely overtones. Shame my car's too small...

[@shonnyno]

Thanks a lot! I will read the pdf of Moeller. According with Guido Facchin (Percussions, 2014, pages 1200) it seems that Paiste can offer gong electronically tuned (442 hz) starting from C2; Orff's Antigone requires G1. (UFIP, ex Tronci: starting from one octave above). Very impressive: look at the score of Tosca III: all the dynamics of all the bells, then...look the curches in Rome from google maps: impressive! Puccini was aware of the distances of the curches near San Pietro: f for the nearest, then mf, p , ppp: all is perfect right! He was imaging the audience in front of San Pietro. This should be recreated in theatre: non only bells in backstage! instead: spheric acustic! that mens that dynamics in Tosca III ppp, pp , p , mf are not musical inspiration but personal knowlodge of the curches in Rome and their distance from the imagined audience location. the score dynamics of the bells **fully agree** with google maps! no words. [sorry my old pc does not allow me to reply, so I started a new post; unfortunately for me youtube is using html5 ].

[@koninete84]

Is it possible to tune the fundamental and the partials? is there any way in which I can only hear the fundamental? I hope you can help me!

[@MattNolanCustom]

there are ways, albeit limited, to adjust the tuning of the partials. A tubular bell gets its characteristic sound from the relationship between the audible partials. Actually the fundamental of a tubular bell is not the note you hear. It doesn't even produce the note you hear - it is an illusion. To make something that only projects the fundamental is impossible, but you could make a large bass vibraphone type thing and use a resonator to strongly emphasise the fundamental

[@shonnyno]

Sorry Matt, are you sure that this is E1? the same note as the harp. it seems E3. Its a bit strange, too high.

[@MattNolanCustom]

Hi Andrea. I feel like we've had this conversation before. It is written in the score as E1 but nobody uses an E1 bell for it. An E1 tubular doesn't even work, psychoacoustically. www.mattnolancustomcymbals.com/blog/?p=115

[@shonnyno]

@@MattNolanCustom Hi, thanks. About E1 I guess that it was Puccini's mistake: on the just above pentragramm he wrote E1 for harp and he wrote E1 even for bell too in the pentragram placed just bottom to the harp, perhaps he wanted a real E2 (plates? plattglocke?).

[@MattNolanCustom]

@@shonnyno An E2 plate played in unison with an E3 tubular would sound great

[@MattNolanCustom]

@@shonnyno I learned recently that Pucinni's intention with the score notation of E1 was for the "lowest available" E bell to be used. Also that a pitched gong made by the Tronci company was favoured - not actually a tubular bell. Large hemispherical cast bells were also used in Pucinni's time. There's a paper by Gunther Moeller.

[@Metalpazallteway]

Hi Mat, do you happen to have a kontakt instrument for these amazing bells. I'm looking to buy one but I'm not to well associated with the instrument in terms of how low can it go and how which can it go. Orchestral wise. I recently found one but not sure if that's the correct octave I'm looking for sinceI like how the deeper bells sound tbh. i feel the one i saw is more generic. Any suggestions?

[@MattNolanCustom]

Hi there. I don't have a kontakt instrument for this - yet. I would suggest looking at someone like Spitfire Audio to see what they have. I don't really know what there is available in terms of good sounding low tubular bell samples. You can't just pitch-shift a higher one down this low because of how the overtones and psycho-acoustics works.

[@Metalpazallteway]

@@MattNolanCustom I agree Mat. I have looked into Spitfire but they have Chimes and glockenspiel but no Tubular Bells. There's one Kontakt inst. I saw from a musician named Andy and he has one that starts at Bb right below middle C and i feel like i want one at least all the way to the F below C overtone. But then again not sure if there's a such thing as ONE instrument that has all that extension.

[@MattNolanCustom]

@@Metalpazallteway in many scores, especially American ones, "Chimes" = "Tubular Bells". Most real world sets run from middle C up to the F or G the octave above. They fail psycho-acoustically above the G. Some sets have extensions down to Bb and below that you pretty much have to place a custom order. It starts to get very difficult to make them work well below around E. I have made down to the C below middle C.

[@Metalpazallteway]

@@MattNolanCustom Whenever you decide to create a instrument let me know! I wanna be one of the first in line... 😅😅😅👏👌 I find this instrument remarkable and yes the spitfire instrument has it starting on Bb I believe which isn't what I'm looking for or at least fully i like the deep sounds, all the way to i wanna say A above middle C.

[@Metalpazallteway]

@@MattNolanCustom Thanks for sharing very invaluable info btw