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BELLS
AND BELLRINGING - 3
In the first article of this series I explained that
when a bell is rung it rotates through a complete circle; it then rests on
the balance, mouth upwards. The ringer can vary to some extent the time
during which the bell is held on balance. This slight variation enables a
change in the order in which the bells sound each time they are rung, but
it is only practicable for a bell to change places with its immediate
neighbour - a bell cannot "jump" two or more places, so tunes
are not possible on bells hung for full circle ringing.
How does this work in practice? The bells begin by
ringing a downward scale, i.e. they strike in order from the lightest to
heaviest. This sequence is known as rounds and on eight bells
would be written as 12345678. From this point, one of the ringers (the
conductor) can call out the numbers of the bells which are to
change position to obtain a new sequence - e.g. by calling "three to
four" the sequence 12435678 is produced, and so on. This is known as
call changes and is very useful for introducing learners to the
bell control they will need to ring changes accurately. If you are
listening to the bells you will recognise call changes easily, as the
bells strike in almost the same sequence, with only slight variation in
order, for some time. This is because the conductor allows the bells to
settle down in their new sequence before calling another change.
A more experienced band will progress from call changes
to change ringing, where the sequence of the bells alters at every
stroke according to a predetermined pattern learned by all the ringers.
The patterns, known as methods, vary a great
deal in complexity. At the most basic level, all the bells change position
with their neighbour, so from rounds the change 21436587 is produced. The
same process would return the bells to rounds, so to produce additional
changes the first and last bells remain in the same position, with the
inner pairs changing, to give 24163857. By repeating these two steps, the
following changes result:
In this method (known as Plain Hunt) all the
bells follow a regular path, e.g. the 8th bell (whose path is shown as a
solid line) moves progressively from the last place in the change to the
first place, then back again. There are obviously many possible variations
of increasing difficulty. An example of a difficult method, tackled only
by very experienced bands, is shown below.
If when you listen to the bells you notice that they
strike in a different order every time they sound, this means that a
method, rather than call changes, is being rung. In the next article I
will explain how a novice ringer progresses from learning to handle a bell
to method ringing.
P.H.M.
Click here to see this diagram in full screen
mode
In this method, known as Belfast Surprise Major, note that the sequence
begins and ends in rounds, and no change is repeated. The treble bell (1)
follows a regular path, repeated each section. Although the line of the
8th bell looks haphazard it is in fact symmetrical about the half-way
point (the middle of the fourth section). All the other bells follow the
same path as 8 but start at different points.
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