Baker Library's Bells: a Story of Shared Soundscapes

Baker Library's Bells: a Story of Shared Soundscapes

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February 21, 2026
Community
Empower
baker library bell tower bells pre install May 20, 1928

How an MFA Student Uses the Bells as a Community Building Instrument

Baker Library's bells turn one hundred this year. Originally cast in 1926 and mounted during the building of Baker Library (completed in 1928), the bells have come to represent daily university life. Today they ring out across Hanover to signal the hour, and at 6pm, you'll hear Dartmouth’s song, “Dear Old Dartmouth/Alma Mater.” How to play the bells has evolved as technology and human ingenuity evolved. Today, individuals ensure they ring with the help of a computer. For the past year, that individual has been Rebecca (Beccy) Abraham GR ’26, an MFA in Sonic Practice student. Beccy discovered the bells through an “accident of history,” in that for decades the music department has continuously offered a graduate student the job of minding the bells and fulfilling special requests, like “Happy Birthday,” or “Hey, Jude.” Until 2024, that student was Rodrigo Martinez GR ‘25. When it was time to pass the bell work on, Beccy asked to do it. 

Why the Baker Bells

Rebecca Abraham GR '26 holds a trombone at the Baker Tower Bells concert

Why the Baker Bells

Fresh out of college and straight into the pandemic with a new job as a software engineer, Beccy (pictured right with trombone) began tinkering with and blending music and technology. They connected with fellow creatives, expanding what Beccy thought was possible at the intersection of music, technology, and community. “Those connections showed me there were other areas out there to be in, play in, and create in.” Curious about the possibilities, Beccy applied to various graduate programs, including Dartmouth’s MFA in Digital Musics (now Sonic Practice). When Beccy visited Hanover in winter 2023, they “fell in love [with Dartmouth]. The people were amazing and doing wildly different and cool things, so I took the leap.” Beccy’s body of work, including making unique instruments, is about bringing broad audiences together through “instruments and improvisations… choreographing social relations and interactions” in novel and exciting ways. 

When Beccy discovered the Baker Library bells, they saw how the bells were a natural next step for their research, believing the bells resonate as an instrument of connection. The bells' sound can spark nostalgia for college life and is a “reminder of a stage in life when everyone is figuring things out.” As such, the bells embody a universality and communality fostered and reinforced on the hour, every day. The bells, Beccy says, have the “ability and possibility to connect [us] with place in a specific sonic way.” Their sound is a “sublanguage” at Dartmouth, “becoming an integral part of the communal soundscape.”

A Baker Library Bells Concert

Recognizing what the Baker bells mean to Dartmouth undergrads, Beccy and fellow musicians, including Rodrigo, Reagan (Rae) Padula ‘24, and Braydon Baxter ‘25, began planning a bell-centric concert for spring 2025 on the Baker Library lawn. Beccy explains how the concert’s purpose was to raise awareness about the bells, their sonic range, and what the bells symbolize beyond ‘Happy Birthday’ or the hourly chime.

musicians, composers, and performers stand in front of Baker Library, Rebecca Abraham GR '26 middle

I want [everyone] to feel more ownership of our collective soundscapes and sonic spaces.

Rebecca Abraham, GR’26

In preparation for the concert, Beccy and fellow musicians composed original scores to make the bells “the center of attention and reveal just how fascinating the sounds [they can make] are,” Braydon shares, adding that it was “an exciting opportunity for imagination within a very constrained compositional space.” Rae arranged speakers to face outward from the Baker Library windows to ensure the original compositions had maximum auditory effect. This approach transformed the Baker lawn into an amphitheater, encouraging the music to bounce and vibrate off and between the Library’s brick walls. The distinct sound of the bells played in concert momentarily brought musicians, passersby, the concert audience, and the music together and into focus.

Dartmouth community watches on at the Baker Tower Bells concert
the technical set up, including the unique keyboard to play the Bells in concert
Rebecca Abraham GR '26, left, with audience members from the Baker Tower Bells concert

Building and Fostering Community Around the Bells

Producing the spring 2025 concert in itself was a community-building experience. For example, Dartmouth ITC experts taught Beccy how to control the Baker bells remotely from the Library lawn with a keyboard, library staff helped coordinate the sound production, and The Hop provided funding to help make it all possible. Overall, the whole production, not just the final performance, Beccy emphasizes, was an “act of community” and “a multi-person and interdisciplinary effort.” It was a chance for people to come together over a shared purpose to “cultivate a [musical experience] where people feel welcome to participate.” 

Writing music for the bells and attending the concert completely changed the way I listen to [the bells]... I’m able to listen with a stronger sense of appreciation and excitement that adds a new richness to the day.

Braydon Baxter '25

Whether it’s a formal concert, hourly chimes, or the random pop songs requested by the Dartmouth community, the bells’ ringing brings us together. Even their sound, deemed by some as an interruption and others as an anchor in their day, can be heard as a positive disruption when all other campus sounds have become almost like white noise. Beccy adds, “I want more people to know they have the choice to make the bells sound and to participate, even just as listeners.”

Celebrating the Baker Library Bells 100th

laborers use wooden planks to move a Baker Library Tower bell, c 1928

Celebrating the Baker Library Bells 100th

To honor the bells’ 100th birthday, Memory Apata, Music and Performing Arts Librarian, is collaborating with students, faculty, and staff (including Beccy) to create exciting and engaging programming for late spring term. There will be an in-depth exhibit in Reiss Hall, exploring the bells’ history and mechanics, as well as the communities that have stewarded the bells through new advances in technology. We welcome everyone to attend the opening event, which will include special tower tours of spaces never before accessible to the public. There will also be enhanced bell tower tours on offer during the week of graduation. Memory is also planning a panel of visiting scholars of campanology, carillon playing, and public sound art. These events are a chance for the Dartmouth community to come together around this iconic piece of Dartmouth tradition and lore.

 

 

 

 

images of the Baker Bells Concert, 2025, credit Biju Abraham

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