Damping

Damping is one of the most important skills a ringer can have, and perhaps the most widely misunderstood as well.

There are two extremes of damping mistakes. The first is the ringer who never, ever damps his/her bell, leading inevitably to clashing tones and nasty harmonies. The other extreme is the ringer who damps his/her bell immediately after ringing, regardless of note value or harmony changes. Obviously this is a problem because no one will ever hear the note, or will assume it's a mistake (even if it's not).

This document will attempt to address some of the issues surrounding damping.

Why

Harmony This one is probably the most important reason to damp. If bells from one chord are sustained through into the next chord, the harmonies can clash and make for something really unpleasant sounding.

Visuals We all know that the visual aspect of ringing is one of the big appeals of our art, and that a big part of the visual aspect is the big circles thing. Yet how can the circles be done if notes aren't being allowed to ring for their full duration? Rima complains:

And damping. They're compusive dampers. They damp everything instantly, and they damp on their shoulders. So all you hear is a tone and a damp, and no fluidity, no sense of where the chord changes really are; and all you see is rabbit punching from the shoulder. (1)

"Feel" This is the hardest to describe. If there are consistently gaps between when one bell damps and the next rings, the piece will come off as sounding very separated. This can be an intentional effect! But it can also come about accidentally and make the piece "choppier" than desired. Putting off damping until the next bell plays makes for a much smoother, more legato feel.

When

Other answers are still possible, though. Many articulations (pluck, TD, mart) are effectively stopped sounds, so the notes cannot hold to their full value (except I have rarely if ever seen a TD whole note, so maybe this isn't really an issue).

Playing with damping can add a lot to the interpretation of a piece. Rob Emblidge writes:

I have looked over the recent discussions on Damping and as a whole I believe that Jason is on the reight [sic] track there is a time and place for all varieties of damping/LV/something in between. There was a piece I was arranging for my group last spring where the sound I wanted I finally found by having the bass/battery damp about 1 beat late (on a series of slow chord progressions). It ended up being most similar to a tower carrilon [sic] from a great distance.(2)

How

An alternative to damping is a partial damp. The best-known of these is the brush damp, which can be used to rapidly diminish the volume of a bell without completely eliminating the tone, such as might be used for a subito pp. Also, this can be useful if one accidentally strikes a bell louder than intended and needs to bring the volume back down to the same level as the rest of the choir. Brush damping can also be duplicated by a partial finger damp after the strike, where the thumb (or other finger choices) lightly presses against the shoulder of the bell (the corner between the collar and the side or further up towards the lip).

Where

This is a little bit of an extension of the "How" section. One need not damp only on the shoulder/chest or with the thumb and fingers. Pretty much any padded surface can be used. "Ectomorphs," by which I mean us scrawny bums, often find they don't have enough padding on the chest to effectively damp there, especially with the larger bells. In this case, the waist is often a better option. For very big bells, sometimes I find the full-body "hug" damp is the only way to quickly silence a bell. Other popular options include the "butt-damp," the stomach damp, and I often find that I use the true shoulder damp, which means damping the bell against the outer deltoid muscle.

Table damping is, of course, a creature with its own advantages and disadvantages. In general it should be avoided because of the physics of the bells--if the bell is close to the table, it cannot project its sound as effectively to the listeners. All the same, table damping is effective when bells need to be changed for accidentals or whatever.

Table damping the big bells presents a whole new problem, that being whomping. Carl Zimmerman explains whomping as occurring because

the basses are so large that only the rim is damped at first when the bell is put down on a flat table--the waist of the bell, where most of the power of the sound comes from anyway, keeps on vibrating for a while.(3)

• Damp, then put the bell on the table (effective, but not alway practical)
• Press the bell into the pad rather than simply laying the bell down.
• Lay the bell down, then quickly brush the hand against the casting to kill any residual vibrations.
• Use rolled-up towels or extra foam cut into half-moons (and painted to match the table covers) underneath the waist of the bell to provide more contact with the table.

References

(1)Rima Greer, in the Handbell-L archives

(2)Rob Emblidge, in the Handbell-L archives

(3)Carl Zimmerman, in the Handbell-L archives

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