bell

Musical instrument, made in many sizes, comprising a suspended resonating vessel swung by a handle or from a pivoted frame to make contact with a beater which hangs inside the bell. Church bells are among the most massive structures to be cast in bronze in one piece; from high up in a steeple they can be heard for many miles. Their shape, a flared bowl with a thickened rim, is engineered to produce a clangorous mixture of tones. Miniature handbells are tuned to resonate harmoniously. Orchestral tubular bells, of brass or steel, are tuned to a chromatic scale of pitches and are played by striking with a wooden mallet. A set of steeple bells played from a keyboard is called a carillon.

The world's largest bell is the ‘Tsar Kolokol’ or ‘King of Bells’, cast in 1734; it weighs 220 tonnes, and stands on the ground at the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia, where it fell when being hung. The ‘Peace Bell’ at the United Nations headquarters, New York, USA, was cast in 1952 from coins presented by 64 countries.

bell

In a wind instrument, the flat disc or flare at the opposite end of the tube from the mouthpiece.

In woodwind instruments, it acts as a shaped baffle controlling the expanding pressure wave emitted from the bell when all the finger holes are closed (at higher pitches pressure escapes from the highest open hole). In brass instruments, it also acts as a directional radiator, the thin metal vibrating with the variation between the escaping sound and atmospheric pressure.

Bell

City in southwestern California, 8 km/5 mi southeast of Los Angeles; population (1990) 34,400. A predominantly Hispanic business and light manufacturing centre on the Los Angeles River, just west of Bell Gardens, it experienced substantial residential growth in the 1980s.