Change ringing - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells

Bell (instrument)

A bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...

in a series of mathematical

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

patterns called "changes". It differs from many other forms of campanology

Campanology

Campanology is the study of bells. It encompasses the physical realities of bells — how they are cast, tuned and sounded — as well as the various methods devised to perform bell-ringing....

(such as carillon

Carillon

A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...

ringing) in that no attempt is made to produce a conventional melody

Melody

A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

.

Today, change ringing can be found all over the world, performed in a variety of media; but it remains most popular in the context where, in the 17th century, it developed: English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

church towers. These typically contain a few large bells rigged to swing freely: a ring of bells

Ring of bells

"Ring of bells" is a term most often applied to a set of bells hung in the English style, typically for change ringing...

. The considerable inertias involved mean that each bell usually requires its own ringer. Thus, contrasted with a carillon, in which a large number of bells are struck by hammers, all tied in to a central framework so that one carillonneur can control them all, a set of such bells is comparatively unwieldy— hence the emergence of permutations rather than melody as an organizing principle.

The mechanics of change ringing on tower bells

Today some towers have as many as sixteen bells which can be rung together; six or eight bells are more common for the average church. The bell highest in pitch is known as the treble and the bell lowest in pitch the tenor. For convenience, the bells are referred to by number, with the treble being number 1 and the other bells numbered by their pitch — 2,3,4, etc. — sequentially down the scale. (This system often seems counterintuitive to musicians, who are used to a numbering which ascends along with pitch.) The bells are usually tuned to a diatonic major scale, with the tenor bell being the tonic (or key) note of the scale. Some towers contain additional bells which are used to allow different subsets of the full number to be rung, still to a diatonic scale. For instance, many 12-bell towers have a "flat sixth", which if rung instead of the normal number 6 bell allows 2 to 9 to be rung as light diatonic octave, other variations are also possible.

The bells in a tower reside in the bell chamber or belfry usually with louvred windows

Louver

A louver or louvre , from the French l'ouvert; "the open one") is a window, blind or shutter with horizontal slats that are angled to admit light and air, but to keep out rain, direct sunshine, and noise...

to enable the sound to escape.

The bells are mounted within a bellframe of steel or wood. Each bell is suspended from a headstock fitted on trunnions (plain or non-friction bearings) mounted to the belfry framework so that the bell assembly may rotate. When stationary in the "down" position, the centre of mass of the bell and clapper will be appreciably below the centreline of the trunnion supports, thus giving a pendulous

Pendulum

A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position...

effect to the assembly and it is this dynamic which is controlled by the ringer's rope. The headstock is fitted with a wooden stay which, in conjunction with a slider, limits maximum rotational movement to a little less than 370 degrees. To the headstock a large wooden wheel is fitted and to which a rope is attached; the rope wraps and unwraps as the bell rotates backwards and forwards. This is "full-circle ringing" and quite different from fixed or limited motion bells which "chime". Unattended bells are left hanging in the normal ("down") position but prior to being rung, the bells will be "rung up", and left just beyond the balance point with the stay resting against the slider.

Below the bell chamber there may be one or more sound chambers, (one of which is likely to house the clock mechanism if the church has one) and through which the rope will pass before it drops into the ringing chamber or room. Typically, the rope's length will be such that it falls close to or on to the floor of the ringing chamber. About 5 feet (1.5 m) from the floor, the rope will have a woollen grip called the sally (usually around 4 ft long) while the lower end of the rope will be doubled over to form an easily held tail-end.

The bellringers typically stand in a circle around the ringing chamber, each managing one rope. Bells and their attendant ropes are so mounted that the ropes will be pulled in a circular sequence, usually clockwise, starting with the lightest (treble) bell and descending to the heaviest (tenor). To ring the bell, the ringer will first pull the sally towards the floor, upsetting the bell's balance and causing it to swing on its bearings. The bell will swing around approximately 360 degrees, firstly unwinding and subsequently winding the rope onto its wheel so that the sally is now lifted towards the ceiling. This is the "handstroke". After a controlled pause with the bell on or close to its balancing point, the ringer will pull the tail-end, causing the bell to swing back towards its starting position. As the sally rises on what is now the "backstroke", the ringer will catch it to pause the bell at its balance position.

During each swing, the clapper inside the bell will strike the soundbow, making the bell sound once. In change ringing where the order in which the bells strike is constantly being altered, it is necessary to time the swing so that this strike occurs with precise positioning within the overall pattern. Of course, precision of striking is important at all times. To ring "quickly", the bell must not complete the full 360 degrees before swinging back in the opposite direction, while ringing "slowly" means the ringer must wait with the bell held at the balance, before allowing it to swing back. To achieve this, the ringer must work with the bell's momentum, applying just the right amount of force during the pull that the bell swings as far as required and no further. This allows two adjacent bells to reverse positions; the "quicker" bell passing the "slower" bell to establish a new pattern. Although ringing certainly involves some physical exertion, ringers rely more on this practised skill than mere brute force; after all, even the smallest bell to be encountered in a tower will be much heavier than the person ringing it and can only be rung at all because the bell is well-balanced in the frame. The heaviest bell hung for full-circle ringing is in Liverpool Cathedral

Liverpool Cathedral

Liverpool Cathedral is the Church of England cathedral of the Diocese of Liverpool, built on St James's Mount in Liverpool and is the seat of the Bishop of Liverpool. Its official name is the Cathedral Church of Christ in Liverpool but it is dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin...

and weighs over four long ton

Long ton

Long ton is the name for the unit called the "ton" in the avoirdupois or Imperial system of measurements, as used in the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth countries. It has been mostly replaced by the tonne, and in the United States by the short ton...

s (over four metric tons). Despite this colossal weight, it can be safely rung by one (experienced) ringer. (While heavier bells exist—for example Big Ben

Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster

Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, and is generally extended to refer to the clock or the clock tower as well. It is the largest four-faced chiming clock and the third-tallest free-standing clock tower in the world...

—they are generally only chimed, either by swinging the bell slightly or using a mechanical hammer.)

Handbells

Change ringing can also be carried out on handbell

Handbell

A handbell is a bell designed to be rung by hand. To ring a handbell, a ringer grasps the bell by its slightly flexible handle — traditionally made of leather, but often now made of plastic — and moves the wrist to make the hinged clapper inside the bell strike...

s (small bells, generally weighing only a few hundred grams). This was particularly common during the Second World War when church bells often were not allowed to be rung (as to do so would have signified an invasion); although the ringers returned to the towers as soon as the war was over, for a number of years thereafter handbell ringing retained great popularity.

When used for practice by tower ringers, each ringer typically handles one bell, just as in the tower. But change ringing on handbells is today quite popular in its own right; and in that context the relevant physical realities of handbells (compared with tower bells) have their effect— on handbells each ringer usually handles two bells (adding considerably to the mental challenge). Likewise, a set of handbells often contains considerably more bells than towers ever do—sometimes several octaves' worth. Today many record-length peal

Peal

A peal is the name given to a specific type of performance of change ringing. The precise definition of a peal has changed considerably over the years...

s, including the longest peal ever rung, come from handbell ringers.

Typically, change ringers using handbells sit or stand in a circle (like tower ringers). The towerbell terms of handstroke and backstroke are retained, referring to an upwards and downwards ring of the bell respectively; and as in towers, the ringing proceeds in alternate rows of handstroke and backstroke.

There is, however, a second school of change ringing on handbells, which uses a technique called 'lapping', or 'cross and stretch': the ringers stand or sit in a straight line at a single convenient table, from which they pick up a bell each time they ring it; and to which they thereupon return it. But as the sequence of the bells is permuted the ringers physically swap the bells accordingly; the bells actually move up and down the table and each row is rung in strict sequence from right to left. A ringer in cross and stretch thus does not have responsibility for his or her own personal bell but handles each as it comes.

Permuting the bells

The simplest way to use a set of bells is ringing rounds, which is sounding the bells repeatedly in sequence from treble to tenor: 1, 2, 3, etc. (musicians will recognise this as a portion of a descending scale). Ringers typically start with rounds and then begin to vary the bells' order, moving on to a series of distinct rows. Each row (or change) is a specific permutation

Permutation

In mathematics, the notion of permutation is used with several slightly different meanings, all related to the act of permuting objects or values. Informally, a permutation of a set of objects is an arrangement of those objects into a particular order...

of the bells (for example 123456 or 531246) — that is to say, it includes each bell rung once and only once, the difference from row to row being the order of the bells.

In call change ringing each row is specifically called for: one ringer (the conductor) tells the others how to swap their bells' places from row. In method ringing, by contrast, the ringers have learned a "method" — an algorithm

Algorithm

In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...

to govern the swaps which they can thus perform on their own like clockwork; a conductor's intervention is needed only periodically, when a slight variation in the pattern is necessary, or to correct errors by the ringers.

Call change ringing

Most ringers begin their ringing career with call change ringing; they can thus concentrate on learning the physical skills needed to handle their bells without needing to worry about methods. There are also many towers where experienced ringers practise call change ringing as an art in its own right (and even exclusively), particularly in the English county of Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

.

Calls are made with spoken commands such as "X to Y" or "X and Y" or "X after Y", in which X and Y refer to two of the bells by their numbers (not by their positions in the row); such a call signifies that after the call a pair of bells will have swapped, resulting in X following Y. However, there are several different ways of representing any given change. By far the most common two are known as "calling up" and "calling down"; each has its merits and inconveniences, but generally any given tower will consistently use one system in preference to the other.

As an example, consider the following sequence of rows, and the calls a conductor would use to evoke them:

{| class="wikitable"

! align="center" | Row
! align-"center" | Conductor's intent
! align="center" | Call, if calling Up
! align="center" | Call, if calling Down
|-
| align="center" | 1,2,3,4,5,6
| to swap bells 2 and 3
| align="center" | "2 to 3"
| align="center" | "3 to Treble"
|-
| align="center" | 1,3,2,4,5,6
| to swap bells 4 and 5
| align="center" | "4 to 5"
| align="center" | "5 to 2"
|-
| align="center" | 1,3,2,5,4,6
| to swap bells 2 and 5
| align="center" | "2 to 5"
| align="center" | "5 to 3"
|-
| align="center" | 1,3,5,2,4,6
| to swap bells 1 and 3
| align="center" | "1 to 3"
| align="center" | "3 to lead"
|-
| align="center" | 3,1,5,2,4,6
|
|
|
|}

Thus it can be seen how these two ways of calling differ:

In calling up, the two bells named are already neighbours in the row, with the second-named previously following the first-named. As a result of the call, these two bells swap position; thereafter the first-named bell follows its erstwhile successor (having moved one spot 'upwards' (backward) to a position nearer the end of the change); the second-named has meanwhile moved 'downwards' (forward) to a position nearer the start of the change. In short, the call literally consists of an instruction that the first-named bell move up (i.e. back away from the lead).

In calling down, by contrast, the first-named bell is instructed to move down (i.e. forwards, towards the lead). The second bell named, the one which the first-named bell is to follow, does not alter its place in the row: it still immediately precedes the swapping pair. The bell which swaps with the one moving down towards lead, on the other hand, is not itself named; its ringer must simply realize that his or her bell must move up to accommodate the first-named bell.

In both cases, the ringer of the bell immediately above (behind) the swapping pair must also be alert, as this bell will be following a new bell after the swap. Rarer forms of call- change calling may: name just one of the moving bells, call the moving bell by position rather than number, or call out the full change.

Method ringing

Method ringing is what many people mean by change ringing. Thanks to it, ringers can spend hours ringing thousands upon thousands of unique changes with no outside direction or coordination. They do not have to memorize impossible quantities of data; nor do they attempt to read it all off some dizzying sheet of numbers. Rather, they are all following a method, a relatively simple pattern they have learned to direct them from row to row.

Since a ringer is responsible for one bell, learning a method consists mainly of memorizing how that bell changes position from row to row; when it advances towards the beginning ("goes down to the front") or when it retreats towards the end ("goes up to the back"). Often ringers study a blueline, a graphical representation of a bell's course from row to row according to a particular method. The methods are simple enough to memorize and so are relatively limited in length; but taken in conjunction with slight standard variations the ringers know to make at regular breaking points, a more robust algorithm

Algorithm

is formed. From time to time and usually when the treble is leading (that is when bell number 1 is ringing first), a conductor calls out the need for another variation by calling "bob" or "single".

For some people, the ultimate goal of this system is to ring all the permutations, to ring a tower's bells in every possible order without repeating — what is called an "extent" (or sometimes, formerly, a "full peal"). The feasibility of this depends on how many bells are involved: if a tower has

bells, they will have

(read factorial

Factorial

In mathematics, the factorial of a non-negative integer n, denoted by n!, is the product of all positive integers less than or equal to n...

) possible permutations, a number that becomes quite large as

grows. For example, while six bells have 720 permutations, 8 bells have 40,320; furthermore, 10! = 3,628,800, and 12! = 479,001,600. Estimating two seconds for each change (a reasonable pace), we find that while an extent on 6 bells can be accomplished in half an hour, a full peal on 8 bells should take nearly twenty-two and a half hours. (When in 1963 ringers in Loughborough

Loughborough

Loughborough is a town within the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England. It is the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and is home to Loughborough University...

became the only band in history to achieve this feat on tower bells, it actually took them just under 18 hours.) An extent on 12 bells would take over thirty years.

Since extents are obviously not always practicable, ringers more often undertake shorter performances. Such ringing starts and ends with rounds, having meanwhile visited only a subset of the available permutations; but trueness is still considered essential — no row can ever be repeated; to do so would make the ringing false. A peal
Peal
A peal is the name given to a specific type of performance of change ringing. The precise definition of a peal has changed considerably over the years...

is an extended performance; it must last at least 5000 changes on eight or more bells and at least 5040 on seven or fewer bells (5040 being 7!, the length of a full extent on seven). A performance of 1250 (on 8 or more) or 1260 (on 7 or fewer) changes likewise makes a quarter peal (quarter for short); a peal or a quarter tends to last about three hours or 45 minutes, respectively.

Half-muffling

For commemorative services such as funeral

Funeral

A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...

s, memorial

Memorial

A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person or an event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures, statues or fountains, and even entire parks....

services and Remembrance Sunday

Remembrance Sunday

In the United Kingdom, 'Remembrance Sunday' is held on the second Sunday in November, which is the Sunday nearest to 11 November Armistice Day. It is the anniversary of the end of hostilities in the First World War at 11 a.m...

, the bells are rung half-muffled. Very rarely, normally only for the death of a Sovereign, are the bells rung fully muffled.

To ring half-muffled a thick leather pad called a muffle is strapped to one side of each bell's clapper

Clapper

A clapper may refer to one of the following:*Part of a bell*Clapper bridge*A sound-activated gadget called The Clapper*A character from the video game Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest*Clapboard used in film production...

. This deadens the sound of alternate strokes of the bells, the muffled stroke sounding similar to an echo of the unmuffled stroke. In some areas the tenor bell (the lowest note) is left unmuffled to heighten the contrast.

History and modern culture of change ringing

Change ringing as we know it today emerged in England in the 17th century. To that era we can trace the origins of the earliest ringing societies, such as the Lincoln Cathedral Guild, which claims to date to 1612 or the Antient Society of Ringers of St Stephen in Bristol which was founded in 1620 and lasted as a ringing society until the late 19th century. The recreation began to flourish in earnest in the Restoration era; an important milestone in the development of method ringing as a careful science was the 1668 publication by Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman

Fabian Stedman

Fabian Stedman was a leading figure in campanology and bell-ringing. His two books Tintinnalogia and Campanalogia are the first two publications on the subject, and introduce the idea of change ringing.Early LifeFabian Stedman was the second son to Reverend Francis Stedman...

of their book Tintinnalogia, which promised in its subtitle to lay down "plain and easie Rules for Ringing all sorts of Plain Changes." Stedman followed this in 1677 with another famous early guide, Campanalogia.

Throughout the years since, the group theoretical

Group theory

In mathematics and abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as groups.The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as rings, fields, and vector spaces can all be seen as groups endowed with additional operations and...

underpinnings of change ringing have been pursued by mathematicians. Bells have been installed in towers around the world and many rings in the British Isles have been augmented to ten, twelve, fourteen, or even sixteen bells. Today change ringing is, particularly in England, a popular and commonplace sound, often issuing from a church tower before or after a service or wedding. While on these everyday occasions the ringers must usually content themselves with shorter "touches," each lasting a few minutes, for special occasions they often attempt a quarter-peal or peal, lasting approximately 45 minutes or three hours respectively. If a peal attempt succeeds, towers sometimes mark the occasion with a peal board mounted on the wall of the ringing chamber; at St Peter Mancroft

St Peter Mancroft

St Peter Mancroft is a parish church in the Church of England, in the centre of Norwich, Norfolk. It is the largest church in Norwich and was built between 1430 and 1455. It stands on a slightly elevated position, next to the market place...

in Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

there is one documenting what is generally considered to be the first true peal: 5040 changes of Plain Bob Triples (a method still popular today), rung 2 May 1715. Today over 4000 peals are rung each year.

Organization and extent

The Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, founded in 1891, is dedicated to representing change ringers around the world. Most regional and local ringing guilds are affiliated with the council. Its journal, the Ringing World, has been published weekly since 1911; in addition to news and features relating to bellringing and the bellringing community, it publishes records of achievements such as peals and quarter-peals. Ringers generally adhere to the Council's rules and definitions governing change ringing.

The Central Council, by means of its peal records, also keeps track of record length peals, both on tower bells and handbells. (The record for tower bells remains the 1963 Loughborough extent of Plain Bob Major (40,320 changes); for handbells it was set in 2007 in Willingham, Cambridgeshire, with 72,000 changes of 100 different Treble Dodging Minor methods, taking just over 24 hours to ring ) More importantly, perhaps, along with keeping track of the first peal ever rung in a method, the Central Council controls the naming of new methods: it generally allows the first band to ring a method to name it.

Much ringing is carried out by bands of ringers meeting at their local tower to ring its bells. For the sake of variety, though, many ringers like to take occasional trips to make a tower grab ringing the bells of a less familiar tower. The setting, the church architecture, the chance to ring more bells than usual, the bells' unique tone, their ease or difficulty of ringing, and sometimes even the unusual means of accessing the ringing chamber can all be part of the attraction. The traditional means of finding bell towers, and still the most popular way today, is the book (and now internet database) Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers.

, that guide lists 5750 ringable rings of bells

Ring of bells

"Ring of bells" is a term most often applied to a set of bells hung in the English style, typically for change ringing...

in England, 181 in Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, 35 in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, 20 in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, 10 in the Channel Islands

Channel Islands

The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...

, 2 in the Isle of Man

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...

and a further 123 towers worldwide with bells hung for full circle ringing. Australia has 45 rings of bells. Others are located in the USA, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

, Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

and Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

Named changes

Mathematical abstraction though each row may be, some rows do have a musical or melodic meaning to the listener. Over the years, a number of these have acquired names — they are named changes. Both the conductors directing call-change ringing and the composers coming up with plans for a bout of method ringing sometimes like to work their favourite named changes in. The table below lists some popular named changes on eight bells; many of these names are also applicable by extension on more or fewer bells.

{| class="wikitable"

! align="center" | Change
! align-"center" | Name
|-
| 12345678
| Rounds
|-
| 87654321
| Back rounds or Reverse Rounds
|-
| 13572468
| Queens (an apocryphal story says it appealed to Elizabeth I)
|-
| 15263748
| Tittums (so named because of the ti-tum ti-tum sound it makes)
|}

Such names are often humorous; for example, the sequence 14235 on five bells is called weasels because it is the tune of the refrain to the children's song Pop Goes the Weasel

Pop Goes the Weasel

"Pop! Goes the Weasel" is an English language nursery rhyme and singing game. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 5249.-Lyrics:There are many different versions of the lyrics to the song...

.

You can find a full list of Called changes at MAW Call Change Collection

Striking

Although neither call change nor method ringing produces conventional tunes, it is still the aim of the ringers to produce a pleasant sound. One of the most important aspects of this is good striking — not only should the bells never clash by sounding at the same moment, the bells should sound to a perfect rhythm, tapping out a steady beat.

It is the custom to leave a pause of one beat after every alternate row, i.e. after the ringing of each ‘backstroke’ row. This is called 'open handstroke' ringing (or open handstroke leading). In Devon, Cornwall and parts of Yorkshire, this custom is not followed when call-change ringing; instead the bells strike steadily without the pause. This latter custom is known as the closed-hand or cartwheel arrangement. However, method ringing in the South West of England employs the open-handstroke as is the universal convention.

Striking competitions are held where various bands of ringers attempt to ring with their best striking. They are judged on their number of faults (striking errors); the band with the least number of faults wins. These competitions are organized on regional and national levels, being particularly popular among the call-change ringers of Devon

Devon

where it is customary for the quality of the rise and lower of the bells to be included as part of the judged performance. Competitions for method ringers usually start "off the stay" — i.e. the bells are rung up before the competition begins. At the annual National 12 Bell Striking Contest the bands are ringing methods and producing a different change approximately every 2.5 seconds, with a gap between bells of 0.21 seconds. To an expert ringer's ear at this level of competition a variation of a tenth of this would be discernible as a striking fault.

Change ringing in literature and television

The mystery novel The Nine Tailors
The Nine Tailors
The Nine Tailors is a 1934 mystery novel by British writer Dorothy L. Sayers, her ninth featuring sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.- Plot introduction :For this novel, set in the Fens, Sayers had to learn about change ringing...

by Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist. She was also a student of classical and modern languages...

(1934) contains a great deal of information on change-ringing. Her fictional detective

Detective

A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...

, Lord Peter Wimsey

Lord Peter Wimsey

Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is a bon vivant amateur sleuth in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers, in which he solves mysteries; usually, but not always, murders...

, demonstrates his skill at ringing, and the solution to the central puzzle of the book rests in part upon his knowledge of the patterns of change ringing.

Connie Willis

Connie Willis

Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis is an American science fiction writer. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards. Willis most recently won a Hugo Award for Blackout/All Clear...

, who frequently and overtly references Sayers in To Say Nothing of the Dog
To Say Nothing of the Dog
To Say Nothing of the Dog: How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last is a 1997 comic science fiction novel by Connie Willis. It takes place in the same universe of time-traveling historians she explored in her story Fire Watch and novel Doomsday Book.To Say Nothing of the Dog won both the Hugo...

(1997), features bell ringers in her earlier novel Doomsday Book
Doomsday Book (novel)
Doomsday Book is a 1992 science fiction novel by American author Connie Willis. The novel won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and was shortlisted for other awards...

(1992); a group of American women led by a Mrs. Taylor frequently appears practicing for or ringing both handbells and changes.

The British television series Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders is a British television detective drama that has aired on ITV since 1997. The show is based on the books by Caroline Graham, as originally adapted by Anthony Horowitz. The lead character is DCI Tom Barnaby who works for Causton CID. When Nettles left the show in 2011 he was...

aired an episode in the fifth season on a series of murders within a bell-ringing team, in Ring Out Your Dead

Ring Out Your Dead

Ring Out Your Dead is the third episode of the fifth series of Midsomer Murders and the twenty second episode overall. It stars John Nettles as Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby and Daniel Casey as Detective Sergeant Gavin Troy.-Plot:...

External links

ringing.info, a wide-ranging and well-organized compendium of ringing links
St Oswalds, Oswestry Ringing Society, The website for the bell ringers of the St Oswalds Church Bell Ringers Association
The Central Council of Church Bell Ringers
Central Council decisions — scroll down the page to see the council's definition of a peal
Ringing World, the Council's weekly journal
Dove's Guide, a directory of towers worldwide with bells hung for change ringing
Discover Bell Ringing - introduction for non-ringers
Some recordings of change ringing
Change Ringing Wiki - Info for ringers

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