Local Bell Ringer Carries on July 4 Tradition

An Independence Day tradition known as "Let Freedom Ring" encourages bell ringers across the country to toll in unison. KPCC's Debra Baer visited a local professional bell ringer, who will be striking a patriotic chord with a very big set of bells.

Debra Baer: There are bells.

[Sound of a hand bell]

Baer: There are bells in towers that toll the hour.

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[Sound of a tower bell tolling]

Baer: And then there are carillons.

[Sound of carillon music: snippet of "The Star Spangled Banner" ending]

Rick Breitenbecher: It's a very unique art. It's not a dying art. Not a lot of carillons are being built. This is one of the few newer ones that exist. This one is now 17 years old.

Baer: That's Rick Breitenbecher, the carillonneur at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. His carillon instrument is a 19-ton set of 52 bells. It's housed in a 250-foot tower with stainless steel exterior columns shaped like crystals.

[Sound of carillon music: Americana-style folk tune]

Baer: It's one of only three carillons in Southern California. Instead of the classic bell curve, these bells have a small bulge.

Breitenbecher: Every one of them has that bulge. That's what creates the major third tone.

[Sound of carillon music]

Baer: The sound is brighter, some say harsher, than classic carillons, which have darker, minor tones. The difference makes a lot of carillonneurs cringe, Breitenbecher says. He certainly did when he first arrived from Michigan around the time the carillon arrived from a bell foundry in the Netherlands. But now he likes it.

[Sound of carillon music]

Baer: Breitenbecher plays the bells with a large wooden keyboard that resembles a piano. Instead of keys, it has wooden levers or batons that look like broom handles. Foot pedals control the big bells.

Breitenbecher: Each one of these little levers is attached to a wire. The wire is attached to a clapper. The clapper is a round steel ball that strikes inside the bell and the bell rings.

Baer: The smallest bell is the size of a flowerpot; the biggest one, that sounds the lowest note, a "C," is about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

Breitenbecher: The lowest bells have very large clappers in them. And they're very heavy – think of a bowling ball.

Baer: When your instrument is in a bell tower, he says, it creates challenges – like how to practice without making the neighbors mad.

Breitenbecher: Of course, when a bell is rung, it can't be unrung, so when one is playing this carillon, you have to make sure – as well as possible – that you have perfected your music before you go up and play it.

Baer: Breitenbecher practices on a keyboard on the ground floor. It's a smaller replica of the original, attached to a xylophone instead of giant bells.

[Sound of Breitenbecher practicing a patriotic song; banging of the levers and pedals]

Baer: He plays the levers forcefully with closed fists, and works the foot pedals with a lot of energy. That surprisingly unpleasant sound is one of the carillon's oddities. Even in the tower, the keyboard makes an awful lot of distracting noise. And it's a good thing no one's hearing it inside the chamber, except the musician.

[Practice music with noise.]

Baer: Breitenbecher insists he can't hear the clacking and banging. During the 30 years he's been playing, he says, he's conditioned himself to tune it out – to listen only to the notes.

Another challenge: there's no elevator or lift. On Sundays, he rides up on a window washer's cable-hoisted rig. Otherwise, Breitenbecher climbs the tower's vertical ladders and spiral staircases almost 20 stories to his instrument. Looking up, he puts on his gloves.

Breitenbecher: So that when I climb up this ladder, it doesn't chew my hands all up because the ladder has an anti-slip surface on it, which is real course and rough.

Baer: Even before he starts the climb, he's breaking a sweat.

Breitenbecher: I hate heights. And you'd would think with all the times going up into this I would get used to it, and I never do.

Baer: Now there's a man who suffers for his art.

[Sound of carillon music: "America the Beautiful" ending bell peal]

Breitenbecher (chuckling): Now I'm out of breath!