Living Water - Dissertations - Bass Ringer's Notebook - Lifting A Bell

Lifting A Bell

WOW! When you get into describing all those lifting techniques you really cause me to wonder. I actually have to go to rehearsal next time and try to pay attention to how I lift. I have no clue which type I am actually using. In fact, I don't think I could have told you there were that many different ways to lift a bass bell. I know I use different lifts, but I couldn't define more than one or two types and I certainly hadn't spent much time thinking of the physics behind it all. Pennsy

Of all the actions in playing a bass bell, lifting it is the most difficult. You must raise a considerable weight from dead rest to a height where you're able to ring it - and not only that, you must do it quickly. It's not a simple mass movement problem because most of the mass of the bell (i.e. the casting) is outside the hand around which it moves. That means there's a large torque involved because the bell tends to rotate against the lifting motion from the handle.

The general theory behind lifting the bell (to me) focuses on the torque. That's because we can't do anything about the mass of the bell - it's constant as far as we're concerned, and six or eight pounds really isn't that much weight anyway (if you're a bowler, your ball probably weighs a lot more than that). So the only choices we have to make our lifts more efficient by fighting it, taking advantage of it, or getting around it.

For reasons of convenience, I've classified the different bell lifts as follows:

Simple Lifts

I think of these as brute force lifts (with varying degrees of elegance?). They don't require much finesse; you just do them.

Dead lift: All that's required of a dead lift is that you grab the handle and hoist. It deals with the torque problem simply by meeting it head-on and (hopefully!) winning. Because it works this way, it's the least efficient lift you can employ. It also puts a tremendous amount of strain on your forearms and wrists and therefore is the most dangerous of the lifts (I've pulled muscles in both arms at one time or another because of dead lifting - I assure you that it's no fun when that happens). Here's what a dead lift looks like:

Dead lift

(Can you see the large forearm muscle bulging in the middle picture? That's the one I've pulled before.)

Two-hand lift: Grab the handle with both hands, with one hand in ringing position and the other somewhere down the handle. This already is a big improvement on the dead lift because 1) you're using more strength, and 2) the placement of the second hand splits the load by adding power and leverage. If you haven't noticed already, you can't do this to lift two bells simultaneously... In way, it's the application of a third-class lever (like a fishing rod) to the problem.

Lip lift: Grab the handle with the ringing hand, and the (inside of the) lip of the bell with the other hand, then lift with both hands. This method deals with the torque problem using leverage (as in the two-hand lift), in the manner of a second-class lever (like a wheelbarrow). It's the safest of the simple lifts because the bell literally hangs between your hands as you lift it, so the potential for torque is virtually eliminated. Another cool thought: If you use the hand that's lifting the lip to give the bell a twist along its central axis (i.e. along the handle), this actually becomes more like a gyroscopic lift (see below), and it easier to execute.

Center-of-Gravity Lifts

Torque results from rotation, and rotation results from exerting a force which goes outside of the center of gravity of the affected object. Put more simply, if you direct lifting force through the center of gravity of the bell, it won't rotate, and so there won't be any torque to overcome. In practice, however, you probably won't get to "zero torque" because the bell must rotate about ninety degrees between resting on the table and ringing (actually more because of the ringing motion, but we're not worrying about that at the moment). But while you can't eliminate the torque factor, you can minimize it so that it's managable.

Drag lift: Pull the bell toward you so that the waist of the casting is on the edge of the pad, tilt the bell to a more vertical position, and then lift it (more or less) straight upward. This serves to tilt the bell using gravity (and the pad as a support for its mouth), and to place the bell in near-ringing position before bringing it to ringing position. You're lifting directly through the center of mass because you've decomposed the lifting problem into a separate rotation and lift.

Some notes: It really isn't possible to lift through the bell's center of gravity without pushing outward a little, but the angle is small and easy to deal with. This also is a rather slow lift because you must move the bell horizontally first, and you also have to ensure that the bell you're ringing doesn't hit other ones as you drag it across the pad.

Drag lift

Push lift: Possibly more accurately, "punch lift". As your hand closes around the bell's handle, punch the handle down sharply and immediately lift through the bell's center of gravity. If you've punched sharply enough, the casting should rebound from the pad a bit while your hand keeps the handle down on the pad - thereby putting the bell's center of gravity above your hand. Then, a perfectly-timed lift will catch the bell at the apex of its rebound, and eliminates the need to deal with most of the torque problem (there will be some remaining just because it probably is impossible to punch the handle so that the casting rebounds to an upright position).

As with the drag lift, you'll find yourself having to push the bell a bit outward as you push it upward, but at least you can lift the bell in situ without having to pull it toward you first!

This is the lift which, as I've read elsewhere, Doug Benton uses.

Reciprocation Lifts

Okay, it's a big word, but it just indicates that a back-and-forth motion is used. The whole idea is to make this motion so rapidly that the direction reversal results in the bell rotating upward from rest to ringing position. In this case, you create precisely the torque you need, and only when you need it.

Pull-push lift: Pull the bell toward you - hard! - and as it comes toward you (more precisely, toward your shoulder...), push away from you and a bit below the center of gravity of the bell. This lift deals with the torque problem by using the momentum of the bell as an aid to inducing the required rotation - the "push" part makes the bell rotate upward (off-center forces cause rotations - remember?) without your having to deal with an adverse rotation. In practice, you probably will find that the "pull" force is very large, and that the "push" force is relatively small.

This lift has the benefit of keeping your arm fully extended on the "pull", which means you minimize the risk of injuring your wrist or forearm. Because the bell is headed toward you, it also means that you have better control - if the bell gets away from you (highly unlikely...), you can usually just catch it. One of the benefits of this lift, also, is that "ringing off the table" is easier because you can use the bell's momentum to ring it, perhaps as a backring.

Counterrotation Lifts

Counterrotation lifts use the bell's moment of inertia (tendency to resist change in rotational speed) to prevent torque from becoming a problem. It's based on the idea that applying a force against a real thing doesn't cause it to rotate significantly for a split-second (if you shoot a can on a fence post, it'll move along the bullet's trajectory a bit before rotating).

Gyroscopic lift: I actually don't use this lift much any more because it essentially is a really slow snap lift (see the next paragraph...).

Snap lift: As of 2004, I use this bell lift upwards of 90% of the time I'm playing bass bells. The seriously cool part is that friends have told me that it looks as if the bells are literally jumping into my hands! My friend Michele Calls this the "Jedi mind trick".

This seems to be the hardest lift to learn by watching because the first part of process is hidden! Start by putting your fingers underneath the handle without grasping with your thumb. Your fingertips should be underneath the inside edge of the handle ("inside" meaning the bottom edge which is farthest away from your palm). Drive the fingers sharply upward through the handle - this is the part that's hard to see - as if trying to lift only that half of the bell, then a split-second later drive the heel of your hand into the lower part of the handle, and then grab the handle with your thumb as the bell comes up, and raise the bell.

I'm not entirely sure of the physics involved. I think it's like this: The initial push upward raises the bell off the table, and a split-second later starts the bell rotating around its axis of revolution. Because this rotation produces a torque, the bell (physically) doesn't tip handle-up; it resists a rotation not in line with the axis. Grabbing the handle with your thumb then provides an opportunity to push the handle under the casting (as in the push-pull lift). If you think in terms of raising the inside half of the bell and then the outside half, you should get the same results.

You can achieve as much, but in a rather slower fashion, by modifying the lip lift: Rather than lifting the lip of the bell from the top center, grab it a few inches farther down and lift the lip briskly, causing it to rotate into your hand, and then counterrotate it back to ringing position. If you like, it essentially is a two-handed gyroscopic lift, and it therefore turns out to be a pretty nice preparatory exercise for the snap lift!

A gauge for the "push": Put a two-pound diver's weight belt weight on your fingertips. Now, just by rotating your hand, drive it at least five feet upward into the air without lifting your hand." That's an idea of how much force you must use.

By the way, I've used the snap lift with Schulmerichs and Malmarks, and it's relatively easy to bring them up off the table even after playing a full octave of 3's for hours. I've also tried it with a Whitechapel C#3 (11 pounds!), and aside from a little extra weight, the bell comes up pretty easily.

Other Thoughts:

I received this from a friend who happens to have a totally different set of choices in terms of how she lifts bass bells:

I spent time at lunch practicing my lifting & have decided that I use the "push" lift about 98% of the time. When back ringing, it is usually the snap lift that I use (unless the bell is already in my hand & I am just ringing those nasty fast passages of the same note repeating.) I try to do NO dead lifting and who has time for a 2 hand or lip lift? (The exception here is bronze C2 through about G2.) The drag lift makes a weird noise as the lip of the bell gets dragged over the wales of the corduroy table cover. Pennsy

It all goes to show you that bass ringing is a very personal thing, and that you have to figure out what's best for you!