Views from the Choir Loft

Angelus Bells and the Raspberry Pi

Veronica Brandt · January 23, 2016 ·

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 cron and a program called mpg123 – a command line mp3 player. There is probably a way to do something similar on other computers or even mobile devices.

These might also make great ring tones!

In the meantime, you may like to read more about the Raspberry Pi.

UPDATE: More recordings from Cologne and France

About Veronica Brandt

Veronica Brandt holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering. As editor, she has produced fine publications (as well as valuable reprints) dealing with Gregorian chant, hymnody, Latin, and other subjects. These publications are distinguished on account of their tastefulness. She lives in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her husband Peter and six children.

Could Pope St. Pius X Sing?

“On 12 March 1908, the complete publication of the Roman Gradual was issued by the Vatican Press. On that very day, Dom Pothier solemnly presented the first copy to the Holy Father. A witness of the audience says that Pius X wished to be the first to see the new book; he opened it at random, at page 128 of the supplement pro aliquibus locis—it was the Introit of the new Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Pope sang it with perfect taste to the last note.” (Catholic Choirmaster, February 1915)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Julius Bas Accompaniment

A very prolific harmonizer of Gregorian chant in the early 20th century was Mr. Julius Bas. He often uses a very strange technique, wherein he employs rests to eliminate the Alto, Tenor, and Bass voices. Consider what he did with “Lumen ad revelationem” here:

* JPEG • Lumen ad revelationem

It seems quite lazy, and I’ve never seen anyone else use such a technique, although Dr. Peter Wagner often switched to parallel octaves when he ran out of ideas… (Yuck!)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Hitting wrong notes

Fr. Valentine Young, OFM, used to say: “The organist can play 1,000 correct notes and one wrong note—and the only thing people will care about is the wrong note.” Last Sunday I hit some wrong notes, and felt bad. Then I remembered a story about Rudolf Serkin and started to chuckle. Charles Rosen (or was it Leon Fleisher?) told the story of Serkin playing a Beethoven Sonata in front of a large audience. The theme is all in octaves; but Serkin hit some wrong notes, and played parallel 7ths instead. This so unnerved him that every time the theme returned, he played the entire thing in parallel 7ths! We must remember that even the greatest hit wrong notes. Alfred Cortot, Vladimir Horowitz, Wilhelm Backhaus, Edwin Fischer, Sviatoslav Richter, Egon Petri—they all hit wrong notes, which we can hear on recordings. (Josef Hofmann was an exception, but he was super-human so he doesn’t count!)

—Jeff Ostrowski