Exploring the Drum and Bell Tower of Beijing

Hey everyone, at the beginning I would like to welcome you all to my new post and hope you are all doing well so far and have a great week! In my new post I would like to share something about an experience I had in Beijing and hope you can learn new things.

A highlight in Beijing was for me to visit the Drum and Bell tower, which are both important parts of the city and are associated with a long history. When it came to the time calculation in the past, these buildings were of great importance and by means of frequencies the different times of the day were defined and starting in the morning until the evening, with drums the different hours were indicated and it's assumed that the most important times were the morning as well the evening hours. The sense was not to create a harmonious song, but one that is as audible as possible which is even audible to people in the distance, but it also had a symbolic meaning and these sounds were also associated with eternal life or the eternal now and of course it was also considered a sign of power of the dynasties. During a visit the drums can also be visited which, however, are unfortunately no longer original and especially I would have been interested in which frequencies they oscillate, but I could not find out so much about it and there are numerous different factors such as the material of the drum or the technique of the drums which can influence it, but I suspect that these drums produce tones between 50 - 700 Hz.

The two towers were built several centuries ago and in the course of time, different dynasties further developed it and involved in the construction were a total of three different dynasties such as Ming, Qing or Yuan. Unlike other sights no reservation is required here, but it must be mentioned that it can be problematic for people who have problems with taking stairs up, but as soon as someone is at the top, the reward is all the greater. A unique thing is that visitors from up there have a great view of the traditional Houses of Beijing, which are also known as Hutongs and of course there are also some information tables that go into more detail about the history and in part an interactive experience is also offered, but I do not know if this takes place at any time of the day. The price of the ticket varies and depends entirely on the chosen option and in any case it can be worthwhile to buy a combination ticket which cost about 30 ¥ and for people who prefer to book earlier a visit to the WeChat Channel can be recommended. The visit to both towers took about an hour, but it must be noted that no more tickets are sold shortly before closing and therefore the opening hours must be checked out beforehand.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new and like my post! I captured these pictures with my Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens and iPhone 16.