Yesterday I watched with pride, my former organ student, Joey Fala, give a tour and recital on the carillon at Duke University. It was part of a series of events for RSCM America—that stands for Royal School of Church Music. Luckily the video is available on YouTube so you can watch it too.

(the whole video is about 38 minutes long) – I highly recommend you take the time to watch it!

Not knowing too much about the carillon, I was most interested to hearing Joey’s explanation of carillon technique. At 9:07 in the video, Joey plays a truly virtuosic piece by Ronald Barnes on the carillon. His long fingers are really used to great advantage here! Joey learned how to play the carillon by participating in the student-run carillon group at Yale University when he studied there.

I also took this opportunity to read the Wikipedia article on the carillon, which you can find here. By the way, people who play the carillon are called carillonneurs, and here is how the word is pronounced by an American:

Carillonneurs are also called carillonists, which is more gender-neutral and easier to pronounce!

Here are some screenshots I took during the guided tour.

I am one of those lucky people who have been up in the bell tower at Duke, and yes, I rode up in that minuscule elevator instead of walking up 180 steps. You can read my post here, “The view from the top.”

In the video, you will hear that the 50-bell carillon at Duke University is now called the J. Samuel Hammond Carillon, in honor of the man who presided over the instrument for over fifty years. I had the privilege of meeting Sam and his lovely wife, Mary, and in the course of our dinner together, I found out that in his younger days, Sam played the organ and had a church job.

I also am acquainted with the name Margo Halsted, former University of Michigan carillonneur from 1987-2003. She started out as an organist and used to live in Southern California where I grew up.

All of this is to ask the question: why is it that organists play the carillon? That is to say, why is it that carillonneurs are mostly organists? I suppose it is because the carillon has a pedalboard similar to an organ pedalboard, although the pedals are a lot shorter. The technique of playing, though, is completely different, as you saw in the video.

However, not all organists can play the carillon, just as not all organists are also pianists, me being a prime example. And I’ve never played the carillon except to try out a couple of notes when I visited Duke University.