One musical area where rival and peer institutions tower over Stanford: we have very few carillon players. It’s not for a lack of a belfry–Stanford’s got one sitting atop a library of all places. But for some reason, we don’t come out to play.

Bells have been ringing on campus for over a century. Back in the 19-oughts, when the quad looked like an Italian city with Memorial Arch and Church poking up above the red tile, people would hear bells chime from a clock tower in MemChu. Those were the days before students had speakers in their rooms and several decades before the Department of Music was even founded, so it’s likely that those bells were a lot of the music people heard day to day.

That clock tower existed for about five years, dismantled along with much of campus by the 1906 earthquake. You hear those same bells chiming in a newer tower as you bike through the intersection of death, late for class. Those bells run on an automatic mechanism, so you don’t get to ring them yourself, unfortunately (but you should watch the contraption whir when the hour chimes, it’s pretty cool).

Luckily, we’ve got a much bigger, more famous tower on campus. The Hoover Tower Carillon that’s been around since the forties is more than the tourist curiosity you show your parents when you take tours to the top. The music department offers lessons (MUSIC 172F or 272F) that give you a chance to sit atop a conservative think tank and peal away. Don’t worry, there’s a practice mechanism in Braun, so you can iron out your mistakes before charming the bikers and pissing off Toyon. The sensation is like playing a giant piano with your fists.

And once you’ve learned, not only could you potentially play at the top of the Campanile or Harkness Tower, but you’ve also got a ticket into towers all over the world.