By now, most of us here at CSArts have heard the new school bell, and we are all asking the same question: “What the hell?” Previous students at CSArts had been hearing the same bell for years, and without warning, change arrived. Week after week, the campus heard a variety of tunes, leaving many students wondering what tune would be assaulting their ears next.
Some students like the change, but their opinion doesn’t matter. The majority hate it, like Braedon Younger (CW ‘24). He expressed:
The bell is gonna make me rip out my ears.”
Agreeing with Younger’s opinion, students add on that it sounds like the intune of a popular kid’s YouTube channel, Cocomelon.
The CSArtisan asked the assistant principal, Mrs. Read, to clarify the bell situation.
The PA system works better with a wireless system so that the little chime that [used to] happen at the end of the blocks doesn’t reach… the 400s…[the tune is] too short so we have to elongate it.”
Due to this, Admin experimented with different audios, that came as default tunes with the wireless system such as ones that sounded like a chorus of trumpets, a bass-booted C# note, and a literal fire alarm.
In the end, Mrs. Read chose the current bell because of its simplicity and long enough tune. It was not intentionally made to sound like Cocomelon, it was just an arpeggio that came with the default sound pack.
If you hate it that much, Mrs. Read did mention that there might be a contest near the end of the year to determine the new bell:
If you want to just spread the word that that’ll be a possibility in the spring, people can start composing whatever they want [for the bell].”
Telltale Bell