How bells make their sound

This series of articles was written 20 years ago, before I started my PhD research. I have done minor updates to correct mistakes and mis-understandings on my part. These papers touch on issues that are explored in much more detail in my thesis. If you are looking for an introduction to bell acoustics with less academic content, you could look at the presentation Building a bell sound I created in 2019.

Introduction

Basic principles of bell tuning

The musical pitch of bells

The strike note of bells

Doublets or warble in bell sounds

How the usage of bells affects assessment of their quality

Other pages I originally wrote as part of this series were on time-variation of bell sounds, modes of vibration, comparison with the results of Perrin, Charnley and DePont’s experiments with an actual recording of the bell they used, and the effect of clappering and building acoustics on bell sounds. All have been more-or-less superseded by work done since they were written.