Ring the Changes

Ring one of six tower bells. Learn Plain Hunt with a blue line to follow, then ring a plain course of Plain Bob Minor from memory.

1 · What to ring

2 · Your bell

3 · Pace

Timing offset: 0 ms

If every blow comes out late, even when it sounds right to you (common with Bluetooth headphones), ring Rounds only and apply the offset it measures. You can also set it by hand.

Tap the big rope button, or press Space, J or F, as your bell should strike. Headphones help.

Study the method first

    Reading the place notation

    x: every pair of bells swaps (1-2, 3-4, 5-6). 16: the bells in 1st and 6th place stay put and the middle pairs swap (2-3, 4-5). Alternating x and 16 is plain hunting: each bell moves one place per row, leads for two blows, and lies behind for two.

    Plain Bob Minor is written x16x16x16,12. The first part is half a lead and is mirrored, so the full lead is x16x16x16x16x16x12, 12 changes. The final 12 is the lead end. It comes when the treble has led: 1st and 2nd places stay, so the bell coming down to 2nds makes 2nds, and the bells in 3-4 and 5-6 dodge, stepping back a place before carrying on. Five leads bring the bells back to rounds: 60 changes.

    Each lead you hunt up and down, and at the lead end you do one piece of work. The five working bells all do the same five pieces of work, each starting at a different point in the cycle.

    What is being simulated

    Rows and rhythm. Each row has six evenly spaced blows. Rows alternate handstroke and backstroke. Before each handstroke one beat is left empty: the open handstroke lead, or handstroke gap. Your bell has to strike in that rhythm in its place, so leading at handstroke means waiting through the gap.

    The bells. Each blow is synthesised from inharmonic partials. Relative to the strike note these are the hum (an octave below), prime, a minor-third tierce (×1.183), quint (×1.506), nominal (×2), and upper partials around ×2.5, ×3.01 and ×4. Every partial is a slightly split doublet, which gives a bell its slow warble. The upper partials die away faster than the hum.

    Judging. A blow within 18% of the gap between bells counts as good. Within 35% is fair, and anything under half a gap is still in the right place. Beyond that you have struck in a different place. The other five bells keep perfect time and do not adjust to you, which a real band would.