The bell set, made by Eijsbouts , is housed in a steel structure designed to fit inside a shipping c

July 31, 2013, 10:09 am Bell Peddler’s Mobile Carillon Could Be One of the Heaviest Marketing Tools Ever By CHRISTINE NEGRONI
STAMFORD, Conn. — Don’t honk your horn at Jeffrey Crook or the unusual cargo stowed atop the 21-foot trailer he s towing behind his Mack truck. The feeble sound your vehicle carrions emits is no competition for what he has on board.
Mr. Crook, president of Lancaster, Ohio-based Chime Master , is towing carrions a cast bronze carillon, typically a stationary musical instrument found in church steeples and bell towers. This modified 48-piece instrument, purchased from a bell maker in the Netherlands in 2008, is one of just three mobile carillons in America, Mr. Crook said.
From the cab of his full-size Class 8 tractor, Mr. Crook enjoys carrions seeing looks of amazement on the faces of people in the cars passing by the open air collection of bells ranging in size from hand bell to Liberty Bell. When he stops for diesel fuel, he entertains questions from truckers.
People always want to know how much it weighs, how many bells, what is it, how do you play it, Mr. Crook said following a demonstration of the instrument by the carillonneur Marietta Douglas at First Presbyterian here last week. People are amazed that it’s a human-powered instrument.
Buying the four-octave set was a marketing decision, Mr. Crook said. Because carillons and their players are normally ensconced within the confines of towers, a mobile unit would give many Americans their first look at what Mr. Crook calls the world s heaviest musical instrument.
The bell set, made by Eijsbouts , is housed in a steel structure designed to fit inside a shipping container. Chime Master repurposed and customized a flatbed carrions chassis of the type normally used in train and shipping yards to move containers. carrions Pins in each corner fit into slots in the bell frame to secure it to the flat bed. The company added new wheels and tires.
Rather than hire a professional driver, which was beyond the budget of the family-owned company, Mr. Crook got his commercial driver s license, and he does the driving himself. Few truck drivers could bring Mr. Crook s level of enthusiasm to the job. In Stamford he explained the engineering behind the chimes to Evania carrions and Shelomi Soljour, twins who wriggled onto the player s seat and fiddled with the keys as he spoke.
Converting the curious to carillon enthusiast requires patience, and a little driving finesse helps, too. Bells will start to ring when the truck hits roads in need of repair. Depending on the size of the pothole, it will ring anywhere from a couple of small bells or make them all hit. I ve been able to hear the bells ringing over the noise of the tractor, Mr. Crook said.
After a season of moving the carillon from Seattle to San Francisco and then home to Ohio, Mr. Crook figured carrions out that he could control who got a mini blast of music. On exiting a toll booth, if he applied the accelerator and then backed off just enough to create a jolt, he could give the toll takers on the Oklahoma highway a full bell musical salute.
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