Despite their informal introduction to bell-ringing, Edwards said the Lowell Klappermeisters still abide by some rules. Theme songs from “The Simpsons” and Harry Potter are forbidden, as are “Happy Birthday” and Klezmer music.
But Eck, Campos and Edwards each said they had no idea what the Danilov delegation would think of Lowell’s weekly musical routine.
Eck, a professor of comparative religion and Indian studies, said she is well aware that those who are Russian Orthodox consider the bells, which are covered with icons, sacred.
In Lowell House, most students sleeping in on Sundays simply consider the bells an alarm clock without a snooze button.
“People will wake up,” Edwards said. “They’re counting on us.”
The Lowell Klappermeisters rang the bells yesterday at 1 p.m., as they do every Sunday.
To make sure that Lowell residents woke up on time, Edwards opened the padlocked door and climbed the steep, rusting staircase above F entryway shortly before 1 p.m. yesterday.
When the clock on St. Paul’s Cathedral nearby rang on the hour, Edwards began tugging at the 800-pound clapper in the center of “Mother Earth,” the 13-ton bell hanging above its own platform in the tower.
On the first of three rings, Mother Earth immediately drowned out the St. Paul’s bells. A few students who had come to the ringing without earplugs covered their ears.
Edwards seemed to swing back and forth with the clapper, using her weight to slow its motion and time the interval between the three rings.
The three Klappermeisters and two guests took turns ringing the other smaller bells, which are connected by wires to a lectern next to Mother Earth.
Each spent a few minutes improvising a tune until the minute hand of the St. Paul’s clock reached the quarter hour.
Mother Earth bellowed three more times and the symphony was over.
Despite the absence of the Russian visitors, Edwards said she was particularly aware of the bells’ origins yesterday.
“It feels very Siberian,” she said, looking out on Cambridge from the tower as the moist wind blew between the bells.