I've written before about handbell-friendly compositions, but now I'm going to start an occasional series about compositions that I like for particular methods. First up is Plain Bob Major, which is the most common eight-bell method for handbell peals and a natural choice for a band starting out on peal-ringing. The composition I'm going to describe is by Andrew Hudson; I've called it a few times and I think it deserves to be better known. At the time of writing, it isn't in the composition collection at www.ringing.org or in the collection of handbell-friendly compositions at www.ringing.info.

I came across this composition back in 1990 when I was an undergraduate in Cambridge and we decided to go for a peal of Bob Major with, as I recall, Rachel Pusey, Giles Hudson and Philip Agg. Giles said that he thought his father, Andrew, had a good handbell composition, so he phoned him from the pub, relayed the composition to me and I wrote it down. We rang it at the first attempt and since then it has been my first choice of composition for Bob Major.

The idea of the composition is to keep 5-6 coursing as much as possible. So either the conductor can ring 5-6 and let someone else ring 7-8 as an easy pair, or the conductor can ring 7-8 and give someone an easy ride on 5-6. Or the conductor could ring a different pair and let two of the band have the easy coursing option... anyway, keeping another pair, besides the tenors, coursing as much as possible is a common theme in handbell compositions.

Suppose that the coursing order is 65324, so 5-6 are coursing at the front of the coursing order. The basic block of the composition consists of two sequences of calls. First: single wrong, single home, single middle. This has the effect of leapfrogging 5 and 6 over each other, keeping them coursing, until they reach the end of the coursing order. Here's how it works:

65324 sW 35624 sH 32654 sM 32456

The second sequence is middle, home, wrong. This brings 5-6 to the front of the composition again, keeping them coursing throughout. Here's how it works:

32456  M 32564  H 35624  W 56324

This is the A block in the composition. Notice that 5-6 are at the front of the coursing order again, still coursing, but the other way around from when they started. Here it is written out in standard notation:

35264  W M H
------------
62534  s   s
42536    s
65234    - -
36254  -
------------

What do 5-6 do during this block of 4 courses? At the singles, one bell makes 4ths and the other makes 2nds. The effect is to avoid the split leads of the coursing position. There's no free lunch though: at the bobs, 5-6 run in and out, which prolongs the split position. The three bobs are at consecutive leads, so 5-6 ring the split position 4 times in a row. Overall we have a block of 4 courses that keeps 5-6 coursing and has the effect of swapping 5-6 over. Ringing the A block twice gives an 8 course "round block", which ends in the original coursing order.

The next idea is to repeatedly ring the block 2A, interspersed with calls at middle to affect 2,3,4. The composition will have 6 middles, called BBSBBS, with 2A between each pair of calls. Here it is, without the first bob at middle; that will appear in a moment. The calling below doesn't start from rounds; the course ends are what they will be in the final composition.

35264  W B M H
--------------
62534  s     s  |
42536      s    |A
65234      - -  |
36254  -        |
25463    A -
35462   2A s
45263   2A -
25364   2A -
45362   2A s
--------------

To get from the plain course to a coursing order with 5-6 coursing, we can call a bob before; in the same course we will call the first middle of the block of 6. To get back to rounds at the end, the bob before can be undone by calling wrong and middle. This gives the following calling:

W B M H
-------
  - -
s     s  |
    s    |A
    - -  |
-        |
  A -
 2A s
 2A -
 2A -
 2A s
-   -
-------

We now have 42 courses, with 5-6 coursing for all except 10 leads. A peal length is 45 courses. The easiest way to add 3 courses is to call 4 homes at the end, BSBS. That's fine, but it puts an extra 3 courses at the end of the peal with 5-6 in their home position instead of coursing. It seems sensible to move those 3 courses to the beginning of the peal. This gives the final composition:

5056 Plain Bob Major
Andrew S Hudson

23456  W B M H
--------------
34256        3*
35264    - -
62534  s     s  |
42536      s    |A
65234      - -  |
36254  -        |
25463    A -
35462   2A s
45263   2A -
25364   2A -
45362   2A s
23456  -   - -
--------------
3* = s-s

Even though it looks a little complicated written out, it's easy to remember the underlying idea, and that forces the calling to be what it is. This is often the case with compositions that keep a pair coursing as much as possible.

There are many other compositions of Bob Major that are described as being suitable for handbells, so if anyone has their own favourites, please leave comments.