Restoration Highlight
The highly anticipated restoration and renovation of The McGaffin Carillon is complete. We are very thankful for the over 225 donors who have made this possible. A list of donors is on the Friends of the McGaffin Carillon website https://www.ucbells.org/friends . In these series of highlights The Friends of the McGaffin Carillon would like to honor some of the major gifts as well as some of the major upgrades to the installation.
A New Practice Instrument
One of the most frequent questions visitors to the tower ask is, “How do you practice the carillon?” Learning a complicated new piece—or even learning to play at all—on the actual tower bells isn’t the best way to stay on good terms with the neighbors. For this reason, most towers have a practice instrument: a clavier, or keyboard, configured like the live clavier but not connected to the bells. If the carillonist is lucky, the practice instrument is located in a warm cozy room during the winter.
The original 1968 installation included a practice instrument that matched the tower clavier and produced sound using bright xylophone-like tone bars. That instrument is still located in the tower. However, the new main clavier follows the 2006 World Carillon Federation Standard configuration, so a new practice instrument was needed to match.
Patrick Macoska demonstrates the new practice instrument to visitors at our “Farewell to the Bells” event in August 2024
Fortunately, in 2021, FMC board member Patrick Macoska donated a practice instrument he had designed and built. It matches the new clavier configuration and, instead of tone bars like the original practice instrument, uses digital sound samples of real bells. The instrument is currently located in the handbell room off Beckwith Hall on the upper level of the parish house—a much more comfortable place to practice.
This practice instrument will see plenty of use as we launch our student guild and introduce young performers to the carillon.