Family of bell-ringers celebrates love of unique music-making
REGINA Carol Benesh never considered herself a musical person.
She didn’t know much about playing instruments, and when her partner, Wayne Tunison, began taking her kids to the bell tower and teaching them to play she was content to just watch.
However, after some convincing, Benesh started helping Tunison with teaching the kids and eventually, she said she “might as well get an apprentice sheet since (she’s) there anyway.”
“Once I started playing, I started to get an appreciation for (bell ringing). I’m not one who likes the spotlight, so this is perfect,” she said. “(But) your audience is out there and you have to be aware of it. As a more senior bell ringer, that’s something you really have to pay attention to.”
Now, after 22 years of playing, guiding tours and mentoring apprentices, Benesh celebrated her bell ringer graduation on Monday.
For the graduation ceremony, Benesh planned to be in the bell tower from 8 a.m. until midnight, playing the bells four times within an hour: at the top of the hour, quarter hour, half-hour, and three-quarter hour.
Bell ringing is a big part of both her life and the lives of her family members, so she says Family Day was a fitting choice for her graduation ceremony.
Benesh’s daughter, Azure, said growing up, she didn’t think bell ringing was all that unique.
“I never gave it a second thought, because you grow up with it, you don’t know that it’s any different,” she said. “But now, as an adult, having seen the world and how other people have grown up, I realize it is fairly unique.”
Now, she lives in Vancouver and doesn’t get very many opportunities to play. However, when she gets the chance, like coming back to Regina for her mother’s graduation ceremony, she makes sure she has time to play as well.
Like her mother, she’s been playing for over 20 years.
“With anything, you go through your discovery period as a teen and you get distracted — I got distracted by sports for a long time — but you always come back to it. The love’s always there,” she said.
Benesh describes her daughter as “the problem child in the tower,” remembering instances of how she’d often be hanging upside down from the ladder. But now, Benesh says her daughter may be “the most talented of the group.”
After her daughters learned to play, it was natural her grandkids — and even her sons-in-law — all became involved in bell ringing. But Benesh said she wasn’t one to push them into it; it was always their own decision.
“I’m a really easygoing person, I don’t like pushing — if you want to do it, you have to be the one driving it. Not me,” she said.
One of Benesh’s favourite things about playing is the ability to play with her family. But if there is a time when she’s in the tower by herself, she says she enjoys the spirituality that comes from the hum tone after the bells are rung.
“You’ve got to dance when you’re playing the bells, going around the circle. And when you’ve felt that music, and the songs finish their hum tone out, you take a breath and there’s a stillness. There’s an endorphin release but there’s also like a spiritual connection release.”
Another thing she loves is giving tours of the bell tower and seeing the look of awe on people’s faces — especially children’s — when they see the bells.
“I just get goosebumps every time I think about it,” she said.
When you’ve felt that music, and the songs finish their hum tone out, you take a breath and there’s a stillness. There’s an endorphin release.