Tattoos are okay, so long as they are more than twelve months old (ditto for piercings). As for the fear... well, in the ten years that I have been donating, I have never once seen the needle. By choice. I am extremely squeamish about needles in any form -- having them put into me or watching them go into somebody else.

About recording bells... well, I am no sound expert. I would just bring a digital recorder with me to practice. The quality would most assuredly be inferior, though. If I really wanted to do a superb job, I would enlist the aid of cheshcat, who used to be a sound engineer back at Uni.