Yesterday we scored our peal of Superlative, using the composition from my previous article. Most of the peal was quite good, after some initial settling down, although we did have a too-exciting rough patch very near the end. It was much easier with 5-6 coursing throughout. Something to watch out for in that composition is that in the blocks of middles, at the calls 5-6 become the place bells corresponding to a call at wrong on the tenors, i.e. 5th and 7th place bells; conversely, in the blocks of wrongs, 5-6 become the place bells corresponding to a call at middle on the tenors, i.e. 6th and 8th place bells.
Our plan with Mike and Ian is to ring a peal of Pudsey next, to complete the right-place methods from the standard 8. After that, there are several directions we could choose. We could stick with single right-place methods such as Uxbridge, Lessness or Cornwall. We could try spliced Cambridge, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Rutland, and then perhaps work up to 6-spliced with Superlative and Pudsey. Or we could tackle Bristol, with the goal of moving on to London and eventually 8-spliced.
For the immediate next goal of Pudsey, I need to find a good composition. I haven't seen many that claim to be handbell-friendly. Here's one by Roger Bailey with 18 courses of coursing for 5-6 (like Superlative and Bristol, starting at the snap in Pudsey means that 5-6 are coursing). It's rather long, and it doesn't look easy to shorten it.
5376 Pudsey Surprise Major Roger Bailey (42536) M W H --------------- 54236 - 65432 2 s 34562 2 2 62543 - - s (34526) - - - --------------- 3 part. Snap start and finish. 5-6 ring 18 courses of 7-8 position. True to all Bc.
Another one from www.ringing.info is a standard composition by Edwin A Barnett, rotated so that 3-4 are fixed at the part end. It has 63% (14 courses) coursing for 3-4, and a nice simple calling.
5184 Pudsey Surprise Major Edwin A Barnett (rotated) 23456 B M W H ----------------- 54632 – – 3 26354 3 53462 – – 3 ----------------- 3 part.
This one by Chris Adams has an appealing 6-part structure.
5376 (5058) Pudsey Surprise Major Chris Adams 23456 M W H ---------------- 64352 - - 53246 - - 34265 s 2 ---------------- 6 part. For 5058 call Bob for Single in last part and omit 2W.
I've called it for Yorkshire in the past - one interesting point is that it can also be shortened to 5058 for Yorkshire, but in a different way, by replacing the 2W by sW in the last part. It's not an easy handbell composition, because 5-6 don't have any coursing at all.
I'm inclined towards the Barnett composition, unless I find anything better between now and the peal attempt.