Among the many rehearsals for the inauguration of the 44th president, none
could be more deliberate than those of a small society of volunteers who
play the great bells at Washington, D.C.’s National Cathedral. One of only
45 working bell towers in the U.S., the National Cathedral has ten heavy
bells, making it the largest belfry in the country.
At the bells of Washington’s Old Post Office Pavilion on Inauguration Day
and in the cathedral bell tower following the traditional prayer service
held the next day, the 45 members of the Washington ringing Society can be
counted on to make an appropriately joyful noise.
Practitioners of an art developed by 17th-century English composers, the
cathedral’s ringing society is nothing if not an anachronism. They play no
hymns or melodies. Instead, they practice what is called “methods,” which
consists of numbers arranged in rows, each number a bell, each row a change
from the one before. Thus, it is labeled “change ringing.”
Six bells can produce 720 changes, and 7 bells 5,040, which is called a full
peal. Reserved only for New Year’s Day and the Fourth of July ringing
sessions, a full peal lasts three hours and twenty-five minutes. Even a
quarter peal of 1,260 changes—the Washington Ringing Society’s usual
form—takes 45 minutes.
Members of the Washington Ringing Society memorize the sequences that appear
in the Ringing World Diary, a pocket guide that contains the most common
compositions.
