A revolution in English bell ringing

A revolution in English bell ringing(harpers.org)

99 points by ascertain 286 days ago | 35 comments

ElliotH 286 days ago |

I love seeing a change ringing article on HN, especially with well labelled diagrams!

The move to a framework system where we can all ring what we like and just describe it within an agreed upon nomenclature is a great improvement rather than the legacy Decisions. Having strict rules always seemed quite dated to me - the ringing police after all do not show up if you ring a "banned" performance. But agreeing on names makes communication possible - a good role for a central body.

Jump changes are fun too, but I don't think I agree with the article that allowing them has really led to a revolution. The top performances on BellBoard are of commonly rung non-jump methods. In fact I don't think I've seen a jump method be featured at all. Philip himself doesn't seemed to have published a performance of "Jump" anything since 2013. For many I think it remains an interesting novelty.

crustycoder 285 days ago | |

The other reason jump changes are not a revolution and have remained just a curiosity is physics, something that's ignored by the article.

For non-ringers, in change ringing the bells rotate 360 degrees each time they strike, from mouth up to mouth up. The clapper hits the bell when the it has rotated roughly 270 degrees from mouth up and is more or less horizontal, approximately 2 seconds after it starts moving. The bells are usually in the 100kg to 1000kg range (for US folks, that's 220lb to 2200lb), although they can be up to 4000kg. The only point when the ringer can exert control on the bell via the rope is when it is near the balance and mouth upwards, and speeding it up or slowing it down any more than one "beat" is physically very difficult on heavier bells, particularly if you are doing it for a full peal, which usually takes 3+ hours.

About the least important thing in the 2022 rules changes (https://framework.cccbr.org.uk/version2) was the allowing of jump changes.

p.s. there's a split-screen video showing the ringer and the bell he's ringing here: https://youtu.be/qrdLP15Xsuk?t=67

dcminter 286 days ago |

Sayers, mentioned here in passing, wrote probably the only detective story explicitly called out (as an introduction to change ringing) in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (a mighty 20 volume encyclopaedia).

So if you like old detective stories and this article tickled your interest, perhaps give "The Nine Tailors" a whirl.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Tailors

vmilner 285 days ago | |

It has ringers taking breaks (for beer, I think) during peals and handing off to other ringers which I was surprised was allowed (till bellringing friends told me it wasn't...). Still a good book though.

mrob 285 days ago |

The only way you can justify public bell ringing is by appeal to tradition. Church bells are very loud and are placed in tall bell towers to be heard over a wide area. Despite the disruption and annoyance they can cause, this is an important part of English culture and I support it.

Once you start changing the rules, you are no longer following the tradition. You're accepting that the tradition can be changed, and in that case, I'd prefer it changed to "silence" not "jumping".

sevensor 285 days ago | |

What a liberty! Straight through the lights, of course!

Waterluvian 286 days ago |

> composers tend to base their methods in mathematical principles such as group theory

I know many composers were and are very in tune with the mathematics of music. But the “tend to” makes me wonder: were most of them in tune, or is it that pleasant sounding music will inevitably display mathematical patterns?

odyssey7 285 days ago | |

"I am taking such pains with these things, not so much out of concern that the pupil might, if they were not explained, thoughtlessly accept and mechanically apply them, as to establish explicitly that these principles are not derived from aesthetics but from practical considerations. If what is known as aesthetics does in fact contain much that is merely practical handling of the material, and if what is known as symmetry is perhaps often not much more than an organization of the material that reveals a sensible regard for its properties, yet I consider it worthwhile to set down these observations. For the conditions of practicality can change, if we take a different view of the material and if the purpose changes. But aesthetics alleges it has discovered eternal laws."

-- Arnold Schoenberg, Theory of Harmony

fanf2 285 days ago | |

That sentence is specifically about composers of methods in change ringing, where the musical possibilities are tightly constrained by the rules and the physics of ringing large bells. Change ringing is based on permutations constructed by swapping adjacent pairs. (Except for the jump changes that the article is about.) For a “triples” peal on 7 bells the ringers are supposed to ring all 5040 possible permutations. It’s called “triples” because you can make up to 3 swaps at a time; one of the challenges (for example) is to construct a triples peal that only uses triple changes.

croemer 285 days ago |

Here's a video showing bell ringing in practice with some deep dive on the permutation nature: https://youtu.be/3lyDCUKsWZs?si=90sPn77wLGk-Sh48

zeristor 286 days ago |

Did someone say Bells on Sunday?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006sgsh

Which normally segues into the Shipping Forecast

subpixel 285 days ago | |

I grew up hearing these bells and being able to listen to them on demand is one the last great things on the internet, for me https://youtu.be/IVvAIYA4uIA?si=qIQGqgNk1JNN4GTw

blipvert 285 days ago | |

> Bells on Sunday

I prefer a nice drop of Laphroaig myself.

mhuffman 285 days ago |

The fact that that webpage does not let me ring any bells is very upsetting!

gorgoiler 286 days ago |

I was in England when HM QE II died. It was a rare opportunity to hear quite a lot of change ringing, notable not least because many of the bells were fully muffled in mourning of the monarch.

riazrizvi 286 days ago |

Bell ringing is English?? I grew up in England and assumed all churches everywhere did it. I guess I just never noticed its absence in the USA, despite living here for over 20 years.

ascertain 286 days ago |

https://archive.ph/xEMWC

khazhoux 285 days ago |

I wasn’t expecting to lose an hour this Saturday to a deep dive on the notation of 6-bell permutations, but here we are.