Right, that Subject line should have scared most of you away, so if anyone is still reading, here is an attempt to explain bellringing diagrams.

For simplicity we will assume that there are only 6 bells, because it makes the diagrams shorter, but it is easily and fairly obviously extensible to 8 or other numbers of bells.

The first thing you have to learn when bellringing is to control the bell. I won't go into that here, but this requires several learning sessions, preferably with the clapper tied so as not to annoy the neighbours. Once a learner can competently handle the bell then they are ready to ring with others.

First they will learn to ring 'rounds'. In rounds, each bell is rung, beginning with the lightest bell, the highest pitched, and continuing down through the bells to the heaviest or lowest pitched. The highest pitched is called the treble, and the lowest pitched is the tenor. The bells are tuned to the normal diatonic(?) scale -- the white notes of a piano keyboard -- and so on a ring of 8 the tenor is exactly one octave below the treble. The bells are conventionally labelled 1 (the treble) to 8, or whatever is the number of bells, and the bells, and more importantly the ropes, are arranged so that they fall in a clockwise circle in numerical order. (I gather there are exceptions to this, but I think they are very rare, and must be awkward, especially for a beginner.) So, when ringing rounds, you pull your rope just after your neighbour to your right, whilst your neighbour to your left pulls their rope shortly after you.

So, in rounds the order of the bells is this (assuming 6 bells, again):

123456

and on, and on, so the diagram would look like this:

123456
123456
123456
123456
etc

Once the beginner has mastered rounds then they will probably practice 'call changes' in which the conductor tells pairs of bells to swap places. And they will practice ringing the bell in first place -- because that bell sets the pace for the others, and has to follow the last bell in a particular way that I won't go into here.

When they have mastered this, then the beginner is ready to learn to 'plain hunt'. In plain hunting, each bell rings two strokes (or 'blows') in the lead, and two blows in last place. In between each bell moves from place to place, moving from the front to the back and vice versa. So if we trace out the course of the number 2 bell it will look like this:

Move from 2nd place to 1st, ring a further blow in 1st place, then progressively ring in 2nd place, 3rd place, 4th place, 5th place, 6th place, again in 6th place, then 5th, 4th, 3rd and back to 2nd place. All this time we are still ringing the number 2 bell, of course, but we are not always in second place; thus:

2.....
2.....
.2....
..2...
...2..
....2.
.....2
.....2
....2.
...2..
..2...
.2....

If you draw a (blue) line through each of the '2's in that diagram, then you have drawn the blue line for plain hunting.

Meanwhile all the other bells are doing the same, and the diagram looks like this, starting with the stroke before, which was rounds:

123456 -- swap 1 & 2, and 3 & 4, and 5 & 6 to get...
214365    swap 1 & 4, and 3 & 6 to get...
241635    swap 2 & 4, and 1 & 6, and 3 & 5 to get...
426153    swap 2 & 6, and 1 & 5 to get...
462513    swap 4 & 6, and 2 & 5, and 1 & 3 to get...
645231    swap 4 & 5, and 2 & 3 to get...
654321    swap 5 & 6, and 3 & 4, and 1 & 2 to get...
563412    swap 3 & 6, and 1 & 4 to get...
536142    swap 3 & 5, and 1 & 6, and 2 & 4 to get...
351624    swap 1 & 5, and 2 & 6 to get...
315264    swap 1 & 3, and 2 & 5, and 4 & 6 to get...
132546    swap 2 & 3, and 4 & 5 to get...
123456    rounds again

which is a complete diagram for plain hunting on 6 bells.

For a method, a red line is drawn through the path of the treble (i.e. through all the '1's) and a blue line through the path of some other bell, frequently the '2'. all the other bells do the same 'work' as the 2, although they each start in a different place of the cycle.

I hope that's enough to understand what these diagrams are about and how they work.

In our next lesson :-) we will consider Plain Bob Doubles and Grandsire Triples. I thought I would try and provide notes on each of the methods listed in NINE -- some of which, including Kent Treble Bob, I have not (yet) learned to ring.

Also of possible vague interest is my diary of learning to ring, which can be found in blog form at http://thinkinganglicans.org.uk/sjk-bells - like most blogs the newest entries are at the top.

simon
tower captain in the little town of St Ives in Huntingdonshire