[Sound of bells playing]
Interviewer Have you noticed the tower bells?
Students Yeah.
Usually a church is the only place you could hear something like that and it's in the middle of our campus.
When I walk around and I hear them it makes me feel happy.
Is there someone whose job it is to play the tower bells?
Uh, the hunchback guy up at the top right, doesn't he do it every hour?
I've heard that it's a guy that actually does it, but I don't know for sure. Do you guys know?
I think there's some guy up there. A cool guy that like is really skilled with ringing bells.
They're mechanized. I would have to say they are mechanized, yeah.
I don't think it's a computer.
It sounded like a bell choir.
It's like a big; it's a bunch of levers that are kind of arranged like a keyboard right?
And, there's a guy that goes up there and does it, right?
Tom Anderson plays the tower bells. He's been doing it for like 20 or 40 years but
apparently he's really great and he takes requests.
Tom Anderson My mama was a piano teacher so she started me on the piano when I was seven. And I played the clarinet in high school band
and also in the UT Longhorn band. I came to UT in '39. I was interrupted by WWII and went off and was in the Navy.
I came back in 1950 and my sister and my younger brother all were music majors.
David, my brother, was the carillonneur or chimer I guess maybe I should say.
So, when he left he took me in to see the dean and said I was showing him how to play so then I took over.
And when I left, I did the same thing with a friend.
I played from '52-'56 and started again in '67. And so, I've been at it since then.
Interviewer Have you heard any specific songs that you recognize before?
Students I heard the Marine Corps anthem one time, which was pretty cool.
Happy birthday.
Michelle by the Beatles.
Amazing Grace.
Raindrops are falling on my head.
Eyes of Texas.
Some Christmas songs when it was like 108 degrees.
One time they played a song from Sound of Music.
They should play the Sound of Music on the tower bells.
[Sound of Music playing on the bells]
Tom Anderson I try to comment on the weather, if it's real hot I play "Let It Snow", "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" are often heard.
Fridays in fall I usually play Texas Fight and Eyes of Texas the day before the football game.
But on April fool's I did play Christmas carols.
I do take requests and most frequent request is "Happy Birthday" for my boyfriend or my girlfriend.
We have a lot of international students here on campus so I get calls on their national day to play their national anthem
and I do that. On the first day of finals, I used to play Chopin's "Funeral March."
Well, one day a student called me and said I just destroyed him and he was shook up so I haven't played it since.
Kimberley Schafer The carillon started in the low countries and it started out with a few bells.
Cities got jealous of each other and it became this competition to see who could come up with the most number of bells
and it grew and grew and grew. But then about 1510, we have evidence of a carillon hooked up to a keyboard console
in Oudenaarde, Belgium, so that's where it really started.
My name is Kimberley Schafer and I play the carillon here at UT. I am sitting in front of a practice carillon console.
On a real carillon you feel weight difference. At the very top of the carillon, it's very light,
they are easy to press down the manual keys and as you gradually go lower and lower it gets heavier and heavier and heavier.
One of these bells at the very top would only be like 30 pounds.
Compared to the 7,350 pound bell which will have a clapper that's much bigger so it will be much harder to move that clapper.
Tom Anderson When the tower was built in 1935-36 the regents installed 17 bells, which meant then we didn't have a true carillon.
A carillon has to have 23 or more bells. So this was a chime rather than a carillon
and we limped along that way until 1986 when an ex-student, Hedwig Kniker, died and left provision in her will
to quote "complete the carillon." We had 39 more bells installed and now we have 56
and that's the reason it's called the Kniker carillon.
Kimberley, I guess we ought to put your name on the board up here.
Kimberley Schafer I think every carillonneur would like to say that they've been playing for over 40 years, I think that's wonderful.
Are you ready for this? Big day. Alright.
Tom Anderson Ok?
Kimberley Schafer It's a momentous day in UT carillon history.
Tom Anderson Yes, you're in!
Kimberley Schafer Just to be able to play these wonderful loud bells so that everybody can hear down below.
It's not an instrument where you go and pay and you sit down in a concert hall and listen but it's something
that is part of your daily life when you are walking in between classes or walking wherever.
It's just something that I wanted to do.
Tom Anderson I hope people will see it and say that's the way you play the carillon; it takes a real live human.
[Sound of bells playing "Yesterday"]