There is currently no ringing at St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, while the rope guides are being repaired after a freak accident in which a wayward rope damaged the structure. As well as occasional visits to other practices, Ian and Barbara Bell have been running a weekly handbell practice at their...
General Progress
It all started several years ago, when Jonathan Frye and Angela Deakin asked if we were interested in forming a handbell band, including teaching Angela to ring handbells. We had been trying and failing to do just this for many years (for reasons far too boring to go into), so we said ‘YES’.
(Really, it all started when Mike Clay began some regular handbell practices with some of the students in Edinburgh and various other handbell ringers in the area, including Jonathan. One day our schedules will mesh enough to all ring together – but in handbell ringing, patience is everything.)
Our journey from those first beginnings to where we are now has been both fun and interesting. Also, we learned a lot about teaching handbells to people at various levels of ability. Through it all we have discussed theories of how people learn, best methods of learning (we don’t always agree), and how to transfer some of this expertise into the bell tower.
The blogs below are about that journey, our progress and the progress of other bands by guest authors. They describe the ups and downs as they happen, as honestly as we can.
We had another attempt for our peal, which started very well, but we didn't manage to keep it up and we stopped at half way again. After a couple of courses, the rate of making trips increased to the point of being a significant distraction, and eventually we found that...
- Read more about London Royal: Part 3
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We rang our quarter of Frederick Delight Major, very well though I say it myself. It's a nice method, and much more musical than Pudsey. Here is the plain course of Pudsey with runs of consecutive bells highlighted (thanks to www.ringing.org for the diagram).
And here is the plain...
- Read more about Frederick Delight Major
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We now have a regular band for 10-bell projects, as Julia Cater is going to come and ring with us once a month. In July we rang a peal of Yorkshire Royal. Consistently with previous discussion about the relative merits of Cambridge and Yorkshire, we found it trickier...
- Read more about Yorkshire Royal and beyond
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We rang the opening section and the first A block quite well, but came to grief in the first turning course. On the positive side, it does seem achievable, if we can become more familiar with the handstroke home position and the transition between tittums and handstrokes.
It's on the...
- Read more about Grandsire Caters: a little more practice needed
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Yesterday we rang our peal of Yorkshire, in a rather echoey room in the buildings of St James' Leith. I called the Bernard Taylor composition, and it went smoothly, although at one point I did indeed become slightly confused about the positions of my bells vs. the positions...
- Read more about A Peal of Yorkshire
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This weekend is the Central Council meeting in Edinburgh, so we've spent some time attending events and helping out. We were asked to ring handbells during the Choral Evensong at St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, this afternoon, at the end of the service instead of the usual organ voluntary.
We couldn't...
- Read more about Performing at the Central Council Weekend
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Scottish Association
Glasgow
1 Albany Quadrant
Saturday, 13 May 2017 in 2h43 (15C)
5024 Spliced Surprise Major (4m)
1344 Glasgow; 1248 London; 1216 Bristol, Belfast; 113 c.o.m.; a.t.w.
1-2 Angela H Deakin
3-4 Tina R Stoecklin
5-6 Jonathan S Frye
7-8 Simon J Gay (C)
We finally did...
- Read more about The Fourth Peal of Horton's Four on Handbells
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Browsing peal compositions of Spliced Surprise Major, for example at www.ringing.org, reveals several compositions of the "Nottingham 8". This collection of methods was proposed at least 20 years ago as an alternative to the "Standard 8".
The Standard 8, of course, are London, Bristol, Cambridge, Superlative, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Rutland...
- Read more about The Nottingham Eight
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On Wednesday we rang a good peal of Pudsey with Mike and Ian. It was our second attempt (I didn't blog about the unsuccessful one) and it was a huge improvement on last time. Very satisfying. That brings us to the end of the project to ring the right-place methods...
- Read more about A Peal of Pudsey
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