Listen to the carillon
Tip: press play to see the sound's live frequency spectrum in blue over the waveform.
How the carillon makes its sound
In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which classifies instruments by how they produce sound, the carillon belongs to the struck idiophones: the body is struck directly – bells, gongs, xylophones and cymbals.
More broadly it is one of the idiophones, where the solid body of the instrument itself vibrates, without strings or a stretched membrane.
Its timbre – the colour that lets you tell it apart from other instruments playing the same note – comes from the mix of overtones its body and resonator emphasise.
From Wikipedia
A carillon is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 bells. The bells are cast in bronze, hung in fixed suspension, and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniously together. They are struck with clappers connected to a keyboard of wooden batons played with the hands and pedals played with the feet. Often housed in bell towers, carillons are usually owned by churches, universities, or municipalities. They can include an automatic system through which the time is announced and simple tunes are played throughout the day.
Other struck idiophones
Frequently asked questions
What does a carillon sound like?
Listen to 3 recordings on this page. As one of the struck idiophones, its sound comes from the way the body is struck directly.
What type of instrument is the carillon?
It is classified as struck idiophones (Hornbostel–Sachs 111.242.222).
Sources & credits
- Carillon St Nic Maudit carillonneur by Musicaline – CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Westminster-vom-Carillon MaxMetz by Max.metz – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Carillon Saint-Roch-Quebec City, Canada by Hamacbleu – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Wikidata Q505174 – CC0
- Wikipedia: Carillon – CC BY-SA 4.0
- Image by Oliver Raupach – CC BY-SA 2.5