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.
Back in 2015/16 we rang a series of peals with Mike and Ian, working our way through the right-place methods from the standard 8 surprise major; a couple of years later we rang a peal of Bristol with Mike. As part of this year's campaign to get more people to...
Yesterday we had our first session with Sgurr a' Chaorachain. We've rung it in the tower, but not since 2020, and I rang it a bit online in 2021. It looks rather spiky, but most of the spiky parts are good landmarks because they involve many bells simultaneously: the pairs...
We rang a quarter of Remus this week, which was satisfying. We've been working on it since the beginning of the year, although far from every week - along the way we've rung a few other quarters of surprise major and royal as well as practising Cambridge Maximus.
We've decided...
This isn't a handbell article, except in as much as we might hope eventually to ring on handbells anything that we are ringing in the tower. But I want to write about some compositions, so here goes.
We've assembled a Scottish Association spliced surprise royal peal band, finally trying to...
This visit took place in Staffordshire while celebrating the 80th birthday of my dad, Phil Gay, but they do say that the best parts of Derbyshire are in Staffordshire.
The original plan didn't involve handbells at all. I was invited to ring a tower bell peal on dad's bells, which...
I sometimes enjoy a cryptic crossword, but yesterday we were filling in the gaps in the grid of Remus. This has been our surprise royal project for a while, with the usual interruptions and diversions. Yesterday's session was quite satisfying, considering that we have had a break of several weeks...
I wrote about ringing handbells at the SACR AGM a long time ago, back in 2015, and we have tried to keep doing it since then because the AGM is combined with the striking competition so everyone has a lot of time not up the tower. This year's AGM was...
Simon has been away at a conference in Paris this week, which has often meant for a quiet week on the handbell front at Albany Quadrant. Not so this week, where I did Visiting Bands 4: Penrith; Skill-building Pays Off, and a slightly surprising touch of Plain Bob Minor.
It...
Yesterday we rang a peal of Bristol Royal, which was a good achievement by all the band. I thought the method-ringing was noticeably better than in our two previous peals of Bristol Royal, with fewer trips overall, fewer big mistakes, and much less need for conducting.
However, there was a...
It's a shockingly long time since I last wrote anything, so here's a quick update.
We've been continuing with the Sunday afternoon band, working up to touches of Bob Minor with some detours into Double Bob and Reverse Bob. We've realised that another useful diagram that isn't in the book...