I wrote:

In our next lesson :-) we will extend Bob Doubles (rung on 5 bells) to
Bob Minor (on 6) and Bob Major (on 8). For a plain course, and for a
simple touch, these are trivial changes in theory.

We have seen that in Bob Doubles, which is rung on 5 bells, the treble always plain hunts, and the other bells (2, 3, 4 and 5) plain hunt except when the treble is leading. In a plain course (no bobs), then at the point when the treble leads one of them dodges 3-4 down, one makes 4 blows in 5th place, one dodges 3-4 up, and the other makes 2nd place.

This method is easily extensible to any number of bells.

In Bob Minor it is rung on 6 bells. As before, the treble always plain hunts. The other bells plain hunt except when the treble leads. In a plain course, the cycle of work (the variations from plain hunting) are: dodge 3-4 down, dodge 5-6 down, dodge 5-6 up, dodge 3-4 up, and make 2nds. The difference is that because there is an extra bell, then the two bells in 5th & 6th places dodge with one another (one on the way up to the back, and the other on the way down to the front), rather than lying at the back for 4 blows.

In Bob Major, it is rung on 8 bells. The treble always plain hunts. The other bells plain hunt except when the treble leads. The cycle of work is now: dodge 3-4 down, dodge 5-6 down, dodge 7-8 down, dodge 7-8 up, dodge 5-6 up, dodge 3-4 up, make 2nds. Two more bells, and two more dodging places.

Bobs in Bob Minor and Bob Major are identical to bobs in Bob Doubles:

If you are dodging 5-6 up or down, or 7-8 up or down, then you are unaffected, and you dodge in the usual way and carry on as in a plain course.

If you are in 2nd, 3rd or 4th place then you are affected in exactly the same way as in Bob Doubles (with one tiny modification):

If you were expecting to make 2nds, then run out to the back, and next time make 2nds.

If you were expecting to dodge 3-4 down, then run in to the lead, and dodge 3-4 down next time.

If you were expecting to dodge 3-4 up, then make the bob -- make 4ths place and go back to the lead; next time dodge 5-6 down.

The only difference is that the bell making the bob, instead of making 4 blows in 5th next time, instead dodges 5-6 down next time (because there is no '4 blows in 5ths' once you have 6 or more bells).

However, unlike Bob Doubles, calling only bobs does not allow us to ring the full extent (720 changes in Minor, an almost impossible 40320 in Major). To do this we also need calls of 'Single!', which is a different variation from a bob. Whilst a bob affects three bells, a single effects only two:

if you were expecting to dodge 3-4 up -- make 4ths and go back to the lead (as in a bob); next time dodge 5-6 down

if you were expecting to dodge 3-4 down -- make 3rds place and hunt up to the back; next time make 2nds.

The effect of this call is to swap this pair of bells around, so that the bell which expected to dodge 3-4 down takes the place of the bell that would have dodged 3-4 up, hence it makes 2nds next time; and the bell that expected to dodge 3-4 up takes the place of the bell that would have dodged 3/4 down, and so it dodges 5-6 down next time.

A bob in Bob Minor might look like this

231546 -- 'Bob!'
213456
124365 -- bell 2: runs out; bell 3 makes the bob
          bell 4: runs in; bell 5: dodge 5-6 up; bell 6: dodge 5-6 down
142356
413265

And at a single we have:

231546 -- 'Single!'
213456
124365 -- bell 2: makes 2nds; bell 3 does the bob work
          bell 4: makes the single; bell 5: dodge 5-6 up; bell 6: dodge 5-6 down
124356
213465

For Bob Major in both cases we just add 2 more bells dodging at the back.

Next lesson: Grandsire Doubles and Grandsire Triples, which are (from a theoretical perspective) simple extensions of Bob Minimus and Bob Minor)

simon