A clock chime is a melody or a set of melodies played at intervals upon a set of bells to mark the passage of time. It is also the name of the installed set of bells, when they are not part of a larger bell instrument such as a

carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a musical keyboard, keyboard and consists of at least 23 bells. The bells are Bellfounding, cast in Bell metal, bronze, hung in fixed suspension, and Musical tuning, tu ...

. Bells that play clock chimes are commonly placed in

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

s and elaborate floor clocks, but may be found any place where a large clock is installed. The chime is distinct from the striking of the hour on a single bell, although a clock that plays a chime normally plays the associated hour strike as well, while the bell stuck on the hour may or may not have a part in the melodies. A variety of chime melodies exist, many associated with a particular location or bell tower that originated or popularized them.

History

The practice of using bells to mark time dates at least to the time of the early

Christian church In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus Christ. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a syn ...

, which used bells to mark the "canonical hours". An 8th-century Archbishop of York gave his priests instructions to sound church bells at certain times, and by the 10th century

Saint Dunstan Dunstan ( – 19 May 988), was an English bishop and Benedictine monk. He was successively Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, later canonised. His work restored monastic life in En ...

had written an extensive guide to bell-ringing to mark the canonical hours. Henry Beauchamp Walters' ''Church Bells of England'' features an entire chapter devoted to the regional variation in what bells were rung, how often, and what events they signaled throughout medieval England. It is from these practices that clock chimes seem to have eventually emerged. Clock towers that chimed on the hour appeared in Italy by the 13th century. They were common enough by the 15th century that, in 1463, Englishman John Baret willed funds to the sexton of St. Mary's Church so that he would "keep the clock, take heed to the chimes, ndwind up the pegs and the plummets as often as need".

Quarter bells

Quarter bells are the bells that the

clock A clock or chronometer is a device that measures and displays time. The clock is one of the oldest Invention, human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, a ...

mechanism strikes on each passing quarter of the

hour An hour (symbol: h; also abbreviated hr) is a unit of time historically reckoned as of a day and defined contemporarily as exactly 3,600 seconds ( SI). There are 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day. The hour was initially establis ...

. Often, as in the case of

Big Ben Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, and, by extension, for the clock tower itself, which stands at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England. Originally named the Clock Tower, it ...

, a different tune is played for each quarter. This enables people to be able to tell the time, without actually having to be within sight of the clock face.

References

{{reflist, 25em Clocks Anonymous musical compositions

History

Quarter bells

See also

References