Yesterday we christened Peter's flat with a nice quarter of Cambridge, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Rutland. It was Peter's first of spliced surprise on handbells, and Jonathan's first of spliced as conductor on handbells. They both did well. Jonathan called this composition:

1280 Spliced Surprise Major (4m)

M W H          23456
--------------------
-   -  R.CR.   64352
  -    NYNC.R  56342
--------------------
5 part.

There are many compositions on this kind of plan - my computer search came up with more than 1000, assuming that the part ends are the lead ends of Plain Bob Minor with 78 added at the back. Some of them have the calling Wrong Middle instead of Middle Home Wrong. The tenors ring the same work in each part, so it's a gentle introduction to spliced. In this particular composition there is a bit less variation for the tenors, as both leads of Cambridge are when the tenor is 6th place bell, and there are two leads of Rutland with the tenor as 7th place bell.

Writing out the coursing orders, we can see that there is quite a lot of coursing (20 leads out of 40) for 5-6, which is a good pair (other than the tenors) to conduct from.

M      W      H
-------------------
53462         54632
       46532
46325         43265
       32465
32654         36524
       65324
65243         62453
       24653
24536         25346
       53246
-------------------

There are also some coursing orders with good musical potential. The transition 62453 -> 24653 -> 24536 -> 25346 can give little-bell runs in each course, although the composition doesn't necessarily ring the right leads to produce them.

Next week we're going to try Lincolnshire Royal, if everyone is available.