Blue Rabbit Iteration #2:In Writing

When thinking further on my idea I wanted to know more about culture  and the different uses of bells within each culture and . Not only what they symbolize , but also how they generated from each culture, how bells started within these cultures and how  they were  made.What do we illuminate from the sound of a bell?What importance does sound bring to everything and everyone around us?What meaning would bells bring without making a sound? How has the consciousness of sound changed over time.  There are many shapes of bells, sounds bells and the tones they make, and what each sound can mean. In my previous post I wrote a lot about how bells were symbolic to me because they have been in my presence at random and important times and have had meaning to me without knowing the history. I have always loved the sound and feeling I got from a bell. although I didn’t know how far the bell rooted from I knew it was important to me from the feeling I got from an early age. The bell dome is supposed to represent the vault of heaven  above and its flat circular bottom represents the flat, circular horizon of the earth . The empty space within represents all that is between heaven and earth. This makes me think that one needs the other to be complete. The sound the bell makes when the inner part hits the outer part sends a message. Depending on the bell and how hard you use it the tone varies.

In 2000 BC is when the fist bells first started up. They were started in the Chinese culture as a religion and way of life. The meaning of them was used for royalty,nobility,wealth,and power. Bells were used for ceremonies, traditions, and are still used today that were created by people. Larger bells were made as the centuries passed. I wonder if this was because people needed a louder sound made or because they needed to be recognized more. The sound was known to reach across far distances and to have meanings for many things such as ending your work shift or starting your day. Bells started to become very popular around the world. Because of this people started to make many different styles of designs where the higher class viewed this as a sign of power. The number of bells that were placed in certain places meant something to everyone around them. The emperor had four bells on each side of where he was living, the prince had 3 bells,  the minister had 2, and the government officials had one. The value of bells seems that it was way more apparent and important to people when they first started being made. Bells are known to be the largest and loudest instruments in the world. They are made from copper and tin with a  range of the lowest to the highest tone on the musical scale.I still feel that bells have importance to certain people today.Myself being one of them, but knowledge about why they are important or their symbolic meaning wasn’t present to me until recently. The way they were made was harder to make beforehand along with a lot of other objects we use and have today. It started off by a metal worker binding together pairs of tiles,creased enclosed chamber with an opened door that can amplify the sound. Sound keeps coming up with a lot that i’m reading and it makes me think about how there are more and more sounds that have further increased throughout time with using objects and instruments and now  technology.Sound is so important to me because it brings certain thoughts and feelings that can be taken out of something else. The sound of silence is very strong and powerful. I think it would be interesting knowing how important the sound of the bell makes to make a bell that wouldn’t make any sound at all.I don’t think it would have as much meaning or any meaning at all. It might even be a nik nak. This was a consideration knowing that making bells 3D printed  out of the material we have here wouldn’t end up making any sound anyway. Sound lies at the very center of speech communication. “A sound wave is both the end product of the speech production mechanism and the primary source of raw material used by the listener to recover the speaker’s message.” Without sound our communication would be very different then it is today, not only for humans, but for other  animals as well. Sound is so much more than just a noise it makes meaning of certain things. You can express yourself so much from playing something that sound is produced from and you can release a lot from making sound yourself.

The consciousness of sound has changed dramatically over time . Now we can listen to sound  threw a small earbud that is from a device such as an Ipod or phone.

Musicians started using small and specialized made bells as an important instrument. Before Christianity bells had been used as a musical instrument of the gods across the land to provide peace, clear peoples minds, bring happiness, and blow away the bad spirits. The bell is one of the oldest percussion instrument. By the 3rd century BC a bell was made that could produce two pitches of sounds. When I think of a bell I think of something smaller being trapped inside something bigger  , when is shaken it is forced to make a sound because it cannot escape. Before the inner part of the bell the only part that was present was the outer part , and made sound by someone  using a mallet to hit against it and make a sound.  The struck handbell vibrates in many different ways which are called modes. Only a few of these carry out enough vibration to make sound. The most basic tone which is called the fundamental lifts up the lowest vibration and causes the lowest pitch to be made.Because there is a fixed amount of metal in the bell, the sides must move outward. The bottom of the bell is pushed inward.

Religions such as Buddhism,Hindu,Shinto and Egyptian religions used bells for spreading information and during religious practices. Buddhism and Hinduism accepted bells as part of their religious ceremonies . It is said that a temple can not be considered a temple without a bell in inside of it. Full acceptance of bells came in the 15th century and by the 17th century is when people started to realize it could be used as a musical instrument.