Most ASU students on the Tempe campus are familiar with the sounds of the carillon, but few can explain the source of the chiming bells at the top of the hour or the music ringing around the Memorial Union daily at 5 p.m.
This Valentine’s Day marks an opportunity for the ASU community to take advantage of these historic instruments.
Through Feb. 14, University carillonneurs are accepting song requests via e-mail (carillon@asu.edu) with a ten-dollar donation (and sheet music if you have it) to be played between noon and 1 p.m. for sweethearts, friends or passersby with open ears.
Cast bells in towers played from a keyboard are a European tradition, but at ASU, the instrument holds a symbolism that goes beyond whistles and bells.
ASU’s symphonic carillon is an electronically amplified version of a conventional carillon, which contains octaves of bells played from a keyboard, as you would play a piano or an organ. Heavier bells are rung from a pedal keyboard played with the feet. ASU’s carillon consists of small bell rods, which are tuned to give off the same sound as a larger traditional carillon’s bells.
Though the carillon was prominent on campus in the late 1960s, care for the instrument waned and its chimes fell silent for more than 30 years.
“A lot of things have disappeared from ASU,” says ASU spokeswoman Judith Smith, a clarinet player and music appreciator.
Smith, who remembered the carillon that played during her graduate school days at California State University Long Beach, is the woman responsible for giving ASU’s carillon a second chance at musical life.
Each evening the carillon plays recording music from four speakers on the MU, including the Alma Mater and ASU’s fight song.
“It is a unique musical instrument,” Smith says. “It adds a little collegiate atmosphere.”
Smith stumbled upon information about the carillon in 2002 while rummaging through ASU archives. She tracked the instrument down to a storage room in Matthew’s Center, where she recovered it from about 35 years of neglect.
In 1966, the Associated Students of ASU had a sizeable surplus of funds. When the Arizona State Legislature demanded the money be returned to the state, former university president and music lover G. Homer Durham (the man for whom the Tempe campus’ Language and Literature building is named) suggested the money be put toward purchasing library books and a carillon.
In 1967 the carillon was dedicated to ASU students and community members who gave their lives for the nation in wars. The instrument’s bulky beige recording device is a throwback to the ‘60s, but the music and joy the carillon produces are timeless.
After rediscovering the carillon, Smith set out on what she calls her “fundraising odyssey” to pay for necessary repairs and refurbishments to the instrument. She had spent several years collecting funds and establishing a place for the carillon in the Memorial Union when a 2007 fire forced it back into storage.
The carillon eventually found a home, and is now fittingly housed in the oldest building on the Tempe campus, Old Main, in a ground-level room next to the Emeritus College. The instrument is clearly maintained with loved; the glass that covers the instrument’s wall-mounted strings is clean and its keys don’t show signs of wear.
The university’s two carillonneurs are Kevin Snow, who works in the bookstore, and William Swayze, who assists with music for the dance department. Smith says the two players are very different in their musical styles; while Snow writes music, Swayze can play anything by ear.
“We would love to have students come and play,” says Smith, who wants to attract more musicians to play the carillon more during lunchtime and weekends. “It belongs to the students.”
The carillon could even provide a beautiful, historic accompaniment to a marriage ceremony in Danforth Chapel, she says.
Reach the reporter at melody.parker@asu.edu
