Handbell roundup for January

Submitted by Tina on

Here is a quick roundup of the handbell highlights in January 2014.  My source for these is The Ringing World's Bell Board.  I'll be developing this as the year goes on, so suggestions and comments are very welcome, and if you have a performance you would like to see featured in a monthly roundup, send us an email and tell us why, and we'll consider it.

First, some notable handbell milestones:

And finally:

Next, some centres of handbell activity have done some useful things:

It has been a busy January in Exeter, with a handbell day early in the year offering some good steps forward for several ringers.  This included a quarter peal of Norwich Surprise Royal, a method we have found to be very useful in building 10-bell confidence.  A couple of weeks later, Lynne Hughes (who organises an annual handbell gathering in Exeter), embraced the challenge of ringing an inside pair.  Well done Lynne.

Another handbell weekend for the Central European Association garnered another nice batch of firsts too, including some spliced surprise for Eric Trumpler.

Richard Pearce steers round two first in method with a peal of Belfast (and we notice that Ruth has been bumped off the trebles too.).  I'm guessing David Maynard will be calling this stuff himself before much times passes.....

Also, some guys in Oxford have been raising their game (and method density)

And finally, our featured performance...I had a couple of candidates for this.

The first was an A-list band ringing 4-spliced Maximus for Maurice Edwards's 70th Birthday, which is always very smart (even if I think they can all do it with in their sleep).

Also at the famous handbell address of 7 Laburnum Road, Spliced Cinques and Maximus (so Lizzie Frye isn't suffering handbell withdrawal symptoms by leaving Cambridge).  That had to be fun.

But my choice for January is Stedman Triples, silent and non-conducted.  I don't care if they can do this in their sleep (and they probably have), I'm still in awe:

St. Martin's Guild for the Diocese of Birmingham
Birmingham, West Midlands
RC Cathedral of S Chad
Thursday, 30 January 2014 in 2h 15m (11 in G)
5040 Stedman Triples
Composed by Thomas Thurstans
1–2 Alan S Burbidge
3–4 Charles A S Webb
5–6 Mark R Eccleston
7–8 Paul E Bibilo
Rung silent and non-conducted.

 

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Comments

With reference to the 4-Spliced Maximus, I can assure Tina that we can't ring it in our sleep, and it requires much practice and intense concentration. When we first tried a peal of Spliced with Rigel, we came to grief after a couple of leads of it. However, we then spent the evening (the whole 3 hours the peal would have taken), repeatedly ringing each lead or section of the composition until we got it right. There are a number of step changes in one's ringing progress, such as from ringing a fixed pair to ringing a working pair, plain methods to treble-bob methods, treble-bob methods to surprise, right-place methods to wrong-place methods, minor to major/royal/maximus. We have to progress through these stages, as each stage builds the skills necessary to attempt the next one. This is true at all levels - even when you can ring Bristol Maximus, there are steps beyond. The step to Phobos, Zanussi and Ariel from Bristol, for example, is relatively small as if you look at the grid of those methods you will find that much of the work is synchronised either side of the treble e.g. in Phobos all bells hunt to a fish tail and hunt back to another fishtail then treble-bob. However, Rigel provides yet another big step change from these methods. Apart from a bit of wrong hunting on six around the half lead, nothing is synchronized. It is almost impossible to ring your bells as a pair - you really do need to ring each bell completely independently, or have the spatial awareness to be able to see an apparently random 12-bell grid in your mind and work through the places at every stroke.