One band, one living room and a lot of changes
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.
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...
The New Year holiday seems to be a popular time for intensive handbell ringing. On Saturday 31st December there were 9 quarters at 26 Wilsthorpe Road, Breaston. On Monday 2nd January there were 6 quarters at 64 Mount Pleasant Road, Exeter. We had a modest handbell day at Tulloch Lodge...
2016 is an easy year for date touches, as it's a multiple of 32, so it's possible to ring a whole number of leads of Surprise Major. Not only that, but the number of leads is 63 = 9 x 7, so it's 9 full courses. For example, (W 3H)...
We are half way through a Horton's Four weekend - we attempted the peal this morning, and we're going for it again tomorrow afternoon. So what happened? After a short false start, we rang quite decently for two hours, right up to the beginning of the split tenors section. Then...
On Wednesday we followed up on a promise from the recent handbell day, by getting Peter Kirton from St Andrews to come to Albany Quadrant for a peal of Yorkshire. Satisfyingly, we succeeded first time, scoring quite a decent peal. Of course we would like to ring more peals...
... in every sense. We went for a peal with Mike and Ian on Wednesday, and found it surprisingly tricky; so much so that we didn't score. It emphasised the fact that the familiar Cambridge work above the treble is a huge advantage in Cambridge, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Rutland. We...
Handbell ringers in the Huntingdon District of the Ely DA met on Saturday 13th February to attempt eight quarter peals. Most of the ringers are at the Plain Bob Minor stage practising in various groups on a weekly basis and everyone has previously rung at least one quarter peal on...
To return to our Horton's Four project, we decided to ring a quarter of each method individually. I have written several articles about handbell-friendly compositions, but Horton's Four is an extreme example of ringing an ordinary composition (actually its difficulty makes it far from ordinary) on handbells, so I decided...
We are just back from a handbell weekend in Tulloch, hosted by Helen McGregor and Peter Bevis. Saturday was the general handbell day, with practice sessions and quarters including Plain Bob Minor (Thomas Gay's first quarter), Stedman Triples, Yorkshire Major and Kent Royal. We had also planned to spend Sunday...
Three of us, my wife Sheila, Sally Mew and I meet on most Wednesdays. We usually ring Plain Bob Minor and have rung many quarter peals over the last couple of years and I have conducted most of them. However, in order to expand our learning and experience I encouraged...