HELPING HANDS

Alex Taft, Change Ringer at Washington National Cathedral

The bell tower of the Washington National Cathedral is a surprisingly wide and open room. Rows of narrow windows fill the space with light, and the views are amazing. From the south, Key Bridge spans the Potomac, leading to the office high-rises in Arlington; from the north windows, you can see all the way to Sugarloaf Mountain in Frederick. "We're fortunate to have an exceptionally large ringing tower," volunteer Alex Taft said. "Most are about the size of a walk-in closet." Taft should know -- he has been ringing bells with the Washington Ringing Society since he was a freshman at Georgetown University.

Dressed in jeans and carrying a cup of coffee, Alex Taft, 25, looks like any other young Washington professional heading out to buy a paper on a weekend morning. During the week he is an administrator for a cardio-thoracic surgical care foundation. But today he's the Sunday tower captain, responsible for organizing his fellow volunteers to ring the cathedral's immense bells after the 11 o'clock service using a technique called "change ringing," or, with a nod to its origin here, English peal ringing. Dating from the 17th century, the bells are struck in specific patterns called methods. As a result, the bells don't produce a tune so much as a cascade of rich, clear tones. "It's nonmelodic, very mathematical in its nature," Taft said. For special occasions, such as the Fourth of July or New Year's Day, the ringers execute a full peal, a cycle of ring changes within a method that takes 3 1/2 hours to complete. For regular Sunday services, however, the change ringers sound quarter peals, lasting 50 minutes, or a series of short touches, each lasting up to 15 minutes.

At the center of the tower is a carpeted dais stretching about 15 feet across. A circle of thick ropes pierces the ceiling, headed up to the room above. There, each rope encircles a large wheel connected to a bell. When the rope is pulled, the bell spins 360 degrees so that the clapper strikes, then whizzes back 360 degrees in the opposite direction to strike again. As tantalizing as the ropes are, casual visitors to the tower are warned off the dais.

"We're very, very keen on safety," Taft said. "Bells don't care one way or the other what's going on, so if you get caught in a rope, it's going to take you up." Constructed at Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London during the early 1960s, the cathedral's 10 bells range from the treble at 608 pounds to the tenor at 3,588 pounds. "Essentially, you've got a Buick on a rope," said Ed Donnen, the tower's steeple keeper, who is responsible for the maintenance of the bells and strict adherence to safety protocols. "[Newcomers] can learn how to handle a bell safely in a matter of a few hours," Taft said. "And we make sure that a person is capable of handling a bell by themselves before we move them on to the next level."

As if at a basketball game, Taft reeled off a list of ringers to take their stations on the dais. "Okay -- Danielle, Quilla, Ed, Greg, Nancy, Roy, Clare -- and I need one more, someone strong, Cecily, you're strong." Each grasped a rope overhead and, on Taft's cue, pulled it down, released, then pulled again.

As the exercise continues, a sense of rhythm developed among the ringers. One served as a conductor who set the pace of the ringing and kept track of the rounds, calling out commands such as "Bob!" or "Single!" to indicate an upcoming change in the bell order. There is no talking, yet "communication is constant," Taft said. "There's catching someone's eye, nodding, smiling, winking . . . just an overall sense of mental connection [and] that we're all on the same page."

That sense of connection points to one of Taft's motivators for his ongoing involvement with change ringing. "My commitment is surrounded by the very strong social bonds that exist. . . . If I were to show up in a tower in England, unannounced, and said that I was a ringer, I would instantly be welcomed, be . . . invited to ring, and I'd have a great group of people to go out with afterwards for a pint."

WASHINGTON NATIONAL CATHEDRAL

Massachusetts and Wisconsin avenues NW. 202-537-6200. http://www.cathedral.org.
To learn more about change ringing, visit the Washington Ringing Society's Web site at http://www.cathedral.org/wrs . People of all ages can perform change ringing, but it requires a considerable time commitment for training and practice. Ringing schedule at the National Cathedral: Tuesdays 7-9 and Sundays noon-2.