At least 13 times a day, St. Mary’s students hear the loud chiming of the bells at the Church of the Holy Communion. While many students imagine these noises coming from a massive metal bell, the loud dings and dongs that we hear are actually recordings.
Some churches use real bells and a few churches use carillons, which are multiple bells played together. But the Church of the Holy Communion uses a digital bell system with no actual bells at all.
David Outz, the minister of music and liturgy at the Church of the Holy Communion points out that our system sounds like a carillon, something that’s rare in Memphis. The only real carillon is at Idlewild Presbyterian Church.
“I don’t know that there’s another real carillon in town [other than Idlewild Presbyterian Church], but ours is digital, so ours emulates or sounds like a carillon,” Outz said.
The recordings are projected by speakers hidden on the steeple.
“The professionals call them horns, but they’re big fiberglass cone speakers, and if you look on the four sides of the steeple, you will see decorative colonial round openings,” Outz said.
The bells are set on an automatic timer system and controlled through an iPad.
“When I first came here, it played from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every hour and every half hour” but now, “We have it set to play from nine to five, [and] it plays on the hour and half hour, and it plays the full Westminster chime,” Outz said.
While the Church of the Holy Communion was being remodeled two years ago, the last bell system was gutted. Because the system was outdated, it made it almost impossible to find the parts to replace the control system.
“The screen had [failed] on the mechanism to control it, and the technology had changed,” Outz said.
After two long years without bells, the current bell system was installed at the Church of the Holy Communion in March 2024 and will hopefully continue for many, many years.
