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 Friday evening we had our first attempt for the peal of 23-spliced. We didn't get it, but we got well into the 5th part, with mostly very good ringing. That's more of it than we have rung in one go before, so although it was disappointing not to reach...
We've been practising hard and we have now rung all of the parts two or three at a time. Well, OK, when we rang parts 1, 2 and 3 we weren't in quite the right order at the end, but we rang most of it. Now it's a question of...
So, this past weekend we had an intensive weekend of 23-spliced practice with Jonathan and Angela, starting on Friday evening and continuing through to Sunday afternoon. It was a great success and pushed us much farther forward than we expected.
Our aim was to just keep working as far as...
We have set aside the coming weekend for intensive practice of the 23-spliced methods, starting on Friday evening and continuing for as long as we can manage. Eventually we will have to stop so that we can go tower-bell ringing on Sunday evening.
We lost the current quarter of spliced...
We have just come back from the annual Gay family get-together, where we usually manage to do a bit of handbell ringing. This year we started with Plain Bob Minor as usual, which was fine. After some coming and going we found ourselves with four people in the room, but...
Last week we were back at home after a holiday in the USA, and we managed to get back to our handbell project by ringing a quarter of Preston on Monday; just before going away, we had scored a quarter of spliced Wembley, Yorkshire, Jersey, Lincolnshire, Glasgow and Belfast. The...
You know the rest...
Last week we reached a point of conflicting projects.
We have had some success...
Yesterday was the SACR AGM and striking competition, held at Haddington. The Glasgow band won the striking competition, followed by Paisley in second place, which was a double triumph as the Paisley band all ring at Glasgow too. After that, I was elected as association ringing master.
One thing I want...
This is the third post in a series on conducting techniques for handbells. In this post and the next one, I will describe ways of using the coursing order to check or correct the ringing.
Plain Bob Major: bells leading in coursing order (www.ringing.org)
The simplest explanation of coursing order...
We always view Holy Week as an opportunity to take a break from the bell tower, and do some more handbell ringing instead. This year, we packed in so much extra handbell ringing, that it has extended into an intensive fortnight of handbell ringing. This year we were very indulgent...