RASPBERRY PI is a small, cheap, British computer. Consisting of a credit card sized motherboard with usb ports, hdmi output, headphone jack and micro usb powered, it is a hobbyist’s delight with many, many possibilities. I’ll put the link to more about this fantastic gadget at the end of this article – don’t jump there yet though! I want to show you what I put together first.
I use mine as a little webserver that can be left on all the time as it is silent and doesn’t use much electricity. That’s why you can see the Wi-Pi dongle in the photo, but it’s not integral to this project.
Today I decided to use it to ring a bell for the Angelus three times a day. We are in the habit of saying the Angelus at noon, but 6am and 6pm are harder to remember.
First thing was to settle on a good chime. Searching for Carillon recordings I did find this collection, but they were all too ornate for a simple Angelus bell.
Another handy gadget I have is a midi controller. Using some synthesizer software called Grand Orgue and a sampled Carillon I was able to generate these short recordings:
* * The beginning of the Gregorian antiphon Ave Maria
* * The beginning of Sub Tuum Praesidium
Then to get the computer to run these I used a feature of most Linux/Unix systems called
These might also make great ring tones!
In the meantime, you may like to read more about the Raspberry Pi.
