The first time I played a carillon was when I was 13. I was visiting my grandparents in Kansas, and a member of the ward was a carillonneur for the bell tower at KU, so she invited us to try it out.
Since then, I've been in a few bell towers here and there. I went back to that bell tower when I was 18, took a carillon class at BYU when I was 19 during spring term, and went back to the bell tower in Kansas with my mom, aunt, and 2-year-old J. (That was the time I played lots of Primary songs for J as well as the song "Royals" in honor of the MLB championship that day.)
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Interestingly, I never ended up playing either of the bell towers at the University of Michigan even though I had plenty of time to do it. So, when I heard from a member of my ward here that I could request a tour of the Yale bell tower, I knew I had to jump on the opportunity before I let it slip away like I had in Michigan.
The first time I emailed, I never got a response. So instead we went to a park and attempted to fly a kite.
The second time I used Kevin's email address hoping that somehow it would work better. And it did! Friday night he got a response so we planned our Saturday around making it happen.
This, of course, was the Saturday when we went to lots of splash pads that weren't on and M locked us out of the house for almost an hour. But even with those adventures, we still had enough time to give the boys baths, eat dinner, and then head downtown.
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| Now tomatillo hasn't always been this glam |
Once in, we headed up the stairs. I had been hoping for an elevator like the KU bell tower, but we all managed the stairs okay. Our first stop was a room with an old carillon with only a few chimes and a full practice carillon that J was happy to try out.
I only briefly tested it out by pushing middle C. Out came the sound of a B.
"It's a half step flat!" I cried out in dismay as everyone around me laughed. The KU carillon was a half step flat, which I had adjusted to fine, but I had still hoped for a carillon that matched the same pitches as a piano when we got around to playing the real one.
And then up another set of stairs we went, and I did my best to ignore the Braxton Hicks. After passing another practice carillon and walking up even more steps, we made it to the real carillon! After admiring the bells for a minute,
our tour guide and his friend played a fun duet for us. J danced along, and I was pretty excited. True, there were about 10 other people in the tour who wanted a chance to play the bells, but I was sure I would get a chance too, especially since I had printed of "Come, Come Ye Saints" to pay homage to BYU. However, right as they finished their duet, the tour guide got a text.
"It says, 'Okay, you can stop now.' What do you think that means?" They replied to the text, and while we were waiting to see what it meant we walked around other parts of the bell tower. Did this mean I wouldn't get to play it after all? Raindrops made their way in through the top of the tower and landed on my head, mirroring the despair I felt. All that walking, and I wouldn't even get to play it?
We headed back into the room with the carillon and they confirmed that the reception had its own music so the bells had to stop. We headed back down, stopping on balconies on our way out to see the pretty rooftops of New Haven.
When we got to a practice room, the two carillonneurs played "You've Got a Friend in Me," which my kids appreciated. I liked it too, but I was in no mood to appreciate it. First the splash pads, then getting locked out, and now this? I was too sad to even ask if I could play the practice carillon. When we got to the college courtyard, the reception was still going on but the security guard was gone. That meant we were locked in from the inside. We had gotten enough dire warnings from the security guard that we didn't want to go anywhere near the reception, but it looked like we might have to. Luckily, we found another sidewalk that led to another door, though it was also locked. But the handicapped button opened the gate, so we were finally free. We headed back to the car and went home, receiving discouraging texts on the way to make sure we felt good about life. And then, to finish off the evening, Kevin asked, "Did you know you have a hole in the back of your shorts?"
Wins all around.
After a few days of mourning, I figured that there was nothing really stopping me from trying again. And since we didn't have any plans for the next Saturday (I know, these are probably the weekends we should go to beaches or New Hampshire or Maine before the baby comes, but I am tired) we tried again!
This time, we were the only people on the tour, and it went much quicker. I got to spend as much time on the practice carillon as I liked, until I felt confident playing "Come Come Ye Saints" in A flat despite it sounding like the key of G (because, of course, it had to be in the right key).
Several stairs later, we were again at the real carillon. I sat down and grinned. Every day, every hour, the bell tower at BYU had played "Come, Come Ye Saints." Now was my chance to play it at Yale!
. . . And, I messed up. Just a little. So I had to do it again!
. . . And, I started before the phone camera was ready. But, that's okay. It's mostly there.
After letting the boys and Kevin try the bells,
I considered playing something else I had learned 8 years ago in my class. But I felt like I had lost a lot of technique in those 8 years, and we hadn't quite put enough quarters in the parking meter to feel comfortable staying forever. So we headed back down, stopping at different balconies to admire the view again (and to imagine our children falling through the unprotected gaps since these balconies didn't have the netting that the balconies the week before had had).
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| There were 216 steps to the very, very top, but probably only around 100 to the carillon. Still plenty. |
Since there was no reception this week, we were able to stop in the courtyard long enough to get a few pictures while M ran in circles.
And that is the story of how I finally got to play my third carillon. I think it was worth it.
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