Peal, Ring and Chime Trivia Quiz

Answer: Each performer is only responsible for certain notes

Handbell music is typically played by ensembles called handbell choirs, but the entire group - anywhere from twelve musicians upwards - represents a single instrument. In most handbell choirs, each performer holds and plays two bells (one in each hand), thus being responsible for two specific notes. All players play from the same score and together, they perform the melody and harmonies of the piece.

A handbell choir needs very good discipline and technique since players must be able to play at a consistent tempo, volume and timbre throughout each phrase.

Answer: Glockenspiel

Used in orchestras as a highlight instrument ever since the classical period, the Glockenspiel (literally "bell game") is also a well-known fixture of marching bands (often shaped as a bell lyre in that case) and has lent its distinctive sound to popular and jazz pieces as well.

Answer: Vibraphone

Vibraphones are most commonly encountered in jazz music. The combination of the Glockenspiel bars with the resonators creates a mellower, sustained sound that is then modulated through the valve's quick opening and closing. The name of the instrument is slightly misleading as a vibrato would be a pitch change but the "vibrating" sound of the vibraphone is actually a tremolo - a change of volume with constant pitch.

Answer: Gong

Initially, the gong originates from East Asia. Often, the sound of the gong depends on the strength and location of the strike with softer strikes near the edge creating clear tones while stronger and more central strikes tend to produce complex crashing sounds.

The gong has been introduced to the orchestra in the romantic period and is a fixture in works by Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Wagner. Most orchestral gongs are rather large with 60 inches being the typical size used in romantic symphony orchestras.

Answer: Rubbing the edges with your fingers

While glass harps are now being manufactured as complete tuned sets of glasses, many performers still create and tune theirs by filling wine glasses with various amounts of water. The standard way of playing a glass harp is to rub your fingers on the rims of the glasses, creating a soft and somewhat eerie sound crossing the chime of a bell with the singing of a violin, however if you are careful, you might also play them by gently striking the glasses with soft wooden sticks.

Answer: An upright piano

A celesta (also spelled celeste) is built like a piano with a standard keyboard triggering hammers which in turn then strike the metal plates. Due to the plates being housed in an enclosure and the hammers having soft felt heads (like those of a piano), the resulting sound is softer than that of a glockenspiel.

The celesta is most famously heard on the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" ballet and in John Williams' scores for the first two "Harry Potter" movies.

Answer: Richard Strauss

In spite of being called a symphony, this work is actually a tone poem without defined movements. Instead, it consists of twenty-two sections together describing a mountain hike in the Alps. The iconic cowbells are just one of several evocative instruments in this work that also calls for theatrical wind and thunder machines as well as a large orchestra (the brass section alone has 32 players), a celesta and an organ. Most sets of tuned cowbells for orchestral use do not have clappers but are typically mounted in xylophone fashion and played by striking with sticks, allowing for a wider dynamic and tonal expression than the standard hand-ringing.

Answer: Carillon

To be recognized as a true carillon, an instrument must consist of at least 23 cast bells, although many contain far more - 47 is the standard for a concert carillon. The player rings the bells via a keyboard, pressing the individual levers with a slightly open fist.

The different size of the bells (which cover four octaves on a concert carillon) requires considerable skill as larger bells require a stronger force to ring and may also need a longer lead time between the beginning of the downstroke and the actual impact of the clapper sounding the note.

Answer: 35,280

Change ringing is an art that is somewhere between music, mathematics and a sport. Ringing a change means ringing each bell of the set once, in a given order. A full peal (also called extent) consists of ringing all the possible changes for a bell set. With seven bells, 5,040 such orders of seven strokes each can be made, thus a total of 35,280 strokes will be produced. Depending on the size and weight of the bells involved, this procedure takes anywhere between one and four hours. If an eighth bell is added, the performance expands to 40,320 changes (322,560 individual bell rings), lasting over sixteen hours.

The only known performance of an eight-bell full peal on a true bell tower dates back to 1963, rung in Loughborough, UK).

Answer: Tubular bells

True tubular bells are a rather heavy, unwieldy and expensive instrument that require a skillful player. In most settings, smaller so-called studio chimes are used which are made of lighter metals. Mike Oldfield's landmark 1973 album "Tubular Bells" features the instrument as the crowning one of 20 different instruments all played by Mr. Oldfield himself in overdubbing technique - that is he would first record himself playing the first instrument (during which he was also accompanied by a quintet of other musicians), then play back the result while recording his second part and so on.