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

Lifting A Chime

Just like bells, you have to lift a chime before you play it.The good news is that bass chimes typically are lighter than the corresponding bells, so life should be easier.The bad news is that they're long enough to be a bit unwieldy.

To me, it makes sense to lift them off the table, but only down to about C3. Below that, they're long enough to present a significant leverage problem because of weight and length. My solution is to lean chimes below C3 against the pads with one end on the floor (you'll need a piece of carpet to protect them if you're standing on linoleum or some other hard surface - a bathroom runner works really well here).

After that point, picking them up is about the same regardless of pitch. Grab the chime just below the noteblock and lift it. The advantage of lifting the chime this way is twofold: 1) It's less of a strain on your wrist than lifting it from the bottom end, and 2) The center of gravity of the chime is below your hand, which means it'll tend toward the vertical position from which you must ring it. Here are some possibilities for lifting large chimes:

• Front grip: Grab the chime across the front with your thumb on one side and your fingers on the (for the right hand, the thumb is on the left and the fingers are on the right). This is a fairly fast lift, but it has the disadvantage of not feeling/being very secure - if you send the chime forward and don't have sufficient strength to hang onto it, you're going to have a few unplanned sounds.

• Side grip: Grab the chime with your thumb in front and your fingers behind. Compared to the "front grip", you exchange some speed for a lot of security with respect to holding onto it. However, it does put your wrist in a slightly awkward position, and so you'll want to watch out for physiological weirdness.

• Tine grip: If your hand is large enough, you might try slipping an index finger between the joint at the bottom of the tines. This is a super-secure grip, but it's difficult to set up and really, really slow. You might find it useful for slower passages with long notes that don't change frantically.

• Two-handed grip: If you have both hands free, you can grab the chime with a side grip just under the noteblock and add a hand at the bottom. This is the safest of the grips, and the best for playing with control (two hands are better than one...), but you won't be able to use it a lot of the time.

You may find that leaning the chimes against the pads is difficult because it will force you to bend over significantly if you're tall (I'm about 5'6", which is just about ideal for this approach, but my friend Keith is about 6'0" and doesn't like having to contort himself); that has the potential to wear on your back after some amount of time. If that's the case, an alternative is to get a chime rack - it's not hard to make one if you're so inclined.