Coordinated bell ringing planned for Abilene church

At first, it sounds like a bad pranking spree. There's a group of people driving around Texas, ringing the bells at random churches.

But as it turns out, these people know what they're doing. They're members of the North American Guild of Change Ringers, and on Tuesday, they're coming to Abilene's Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest to show what they can do.

First, a brief explanation: "change ringing" entails the coordinated ringing of church bells to produce a melodic scale or sequence. Teams of change ringers pull on hanging ropes to play the church bells, timing their yanks just so.

One might think that there are plenty of bell towers out there for these unorthodox musicians to practice their trade, but it's quite the opposite. Because so many churches have gone to electronic bell systems, change ringing is something of a dying art.

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