The University of Idaho clock tower, an almost European old-world icon in Idaho, wouldn’t have its charm without the music that rings daily from the carillon music player.
“The carillon adds a great deal to the character of our campus,” said Jenny Warner, an administrative assistant at the Lionel Hampton School of Music. “There’s nothing like standing out in the snow and hearing the music — it’s magical, actually.”
The carillon arrived at UI thanks to a $38,000 donation that filled the campus with music for the next 50 years. The first public performance of the carillon was Mother’s Day, 1964.
The carillon originally rested in the School of Music and consisted of 183 small bronze bells struck by metal hammers. The bronze bells were meant to emulate the depth and richness of traditional cast bells weighing more than 100,000 pounds without the weight and space.
The vibrations were picked up electronically, sent to the clock tower and played through speakers.
Susan Billin, an adjunct organ professor at UI since 1978, usually recorded music for the clock tower using the carillon. The bells could also be triggered by a player-piano-style paper roll, which eventually became unusable in the early ’90s.
After a while, the electronics of the carillon started misfiring. The bells triggered at odd hours of the night, and the music department often received complaints from residents. It was time for the system to be repaired or replaced.
An electronic system replaced the original carillon system in 1997. The room-sized carillon was put on long-term loan to First Presbyterian Church.
“It would have been a shame for it to be scrapped or leave the community,” Warner said. “It’s a beautiful instrument.”
The new carillon is located backstage in the UI Administration Building Auditorium. The keys of an organ are individually wired to receive information, which is sent to the box-sized carillon and then played through the speakers above the clock.
Billin plays live music before every commencement in December and May, but the daily songs are prerecorded.
Warner said the music doesn’t sound the same since the replacement. She said the old carillon was a giant music box, and the computerized version doesn’t compare in charm or sound. Now, the music is just a digital representation of how a bell would sound.
“It’s still pretty, it’s just not the same,” Warner said. “It doesn’t have the same resonance that the old chimes did and it’s not as loud as it used to be. It wouldn’t wake people up in the middle of night, and that’s what I loved about it. You could hear it all over town.”
In the summer of 2011, the entire clock was renovated so that a small box on the back of the clock runs the entire system.
Mark Brooker, an UI electrical supervisor, said the clock still has an electronic motor, but is now set digitally instead of manually. It was put on a digital system, so the hands wouldn’t have to be turned during daylight saving time or if the clock was ever inaccurate. Brooker said the new digital system saves UI money because it uses less energy and requires less maintenance.
Terry Evans, financial technician for the UI Department of Chemistry, said the clock and its music are an important symbol of UI to students and alumni.
“If you ask the alumni what they remember the most, it’s things like Hello Walk and the clock tower,” Evans said.
Evans said back in the late ’90s, when he served as an events manager, he and his team made a backdrop of the clock tower for an alumni campaign dinner in Boise, which duplicated Hello Walk with a paved pathway, rows of trees, light posts and the Administration Building with the clock. Before the dinner, prerecorded music played from the clock, just as it would on Hello Walk.
“The alumni loved it, because there was their clock tower and they were hearing what they remembered about campus,” Evans said. “They related that sound back to their time on campus. It’s one of those things you take with you when you leave.”
Written by Alexia Neal