Their Avocation Has a Nice Ring to It

On a piano, you can stumble through “Alley Cat” or a two-fingered “Amazing Grace” and only your housemates suffer.

Not so with bells. For a Wesleyan University bell ringer, the large instruments hanging in the tower overhead don’t lend themselves to practice. On bells that weigh as much as a ton and a half apiece, a mistake reverberates--or so the bell ringers have been told--nearly a mile .

Fortunately, the bell builders thought of that. When the original 11 bells were cast in London during World War I, a practice console was included. Off to the side of the tower bell room at the university’s brownstone South College sits a beechwood console similar in all ways but one to the console that connects levers that pull wires that pull bell clappers overhead. The practice console has only small chimes hanging off the back, and those chimes are stuffed with paper towels to muffle the sound.

A quiet practice is especially important because two of Wesleyan’s three bell ringers--officially known as chime masters--tend to push the bell-ringing envelope. A weird song played badly on bells lasts forever.

Peter M. Frenzel, Wesleyan professor of German studies, is the traditionalist. Three years ago, faculty meetings were keeping him from his bells. When Holly Schroll, now a junior molecular biology and biochemistry major, approached him as an apprentice, he was pleased. When the Long Island native worked through “You Are My Sunshine” with nary a hitch, he was ecstatic.

She is, said Frenzel, “on the bell-ringing edge.” “Amazing Grace,” sure, but yes, too, to the themes from “Star Wars” or “Jurassic Park.” Schroll tried “Stayin’ Alive,” but with just 16 bells, it didn’t work. Neither does most punk and techno music. On the other hand, Elvis Presley sounds fine, especially “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” as well as seasonal tunes like “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Slow songs work best, especially if they confine themselves to the bells’ 16 notes.

Frenzel still drops by to play. Schroll plays every weekday at noon. Pete Harvey, an apprentice of Schroll’s for the past three months, and a sophomore from Piedmont, Calif. majoring in government and political theory, plays the afternoons.

You don’t tug long ropes to play the bells. You pull beechwood levers on the console. When she plays, Schroll sits on a high bench and waves her upper body back and forth over the levers, like the pianist and violinist she is. Harvey, a singer and tenor saxophone player, sometimes moves the bench to stand and play, and he bends over the levers as if to protect them.

It is one of the most public of secret societies. Harvey was told of a conversation among other students about the bells that ended, “Those bells make me happy.”

Indeed. Earlier this week, Harvey takes his turn at “Eleanor Rigby,” and a woman walking through College Row looks toward the belfry and smiles.

Even traditional bell sheet music is hard to come by. To play the newer, less traditional stuff, Schroll and Harvey write their own music.

“You hear a song and you think, ‘I bet that would work on the bells,’ ” Harvey said. “And then I start bonging. I can figure out if it works if I say the notes, ‘Bong, bong, bong.’ ”

“I will be sitting in class and a song will pop into my head, and I will come in here and try to arrange it,” Schroll said. “Stayin’ Alive” came from a viewing of “Saturday Night Fever.” After she played it just once on the bells, though, she asked a friend if he’d heard the song. “Well,” he said, “I heard something weird.”

Usually, though, Schroll wouldn’t ask. Neither she nor Harvey admit much to playing bells. The secrecy is part of the mystique.

“People hear you but it’s like a movie where the music comes from the sky,” Schroll said. “We are the soundtrack to their lives.

“Besides, it’s a compliment if they think the bells are run by computer. We manage to make it seem like we don’t make mistakes.”

They promise to try the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Californication.” Already, Harvey’s off to the side, bonging the notes quietly. He nods. Next he’ll head to the practice console. Sure. It could work.