On 7 Aug 2004, at 21:03, Simon Kershaw wrote:

Although I said that the next in this series would be about when to
call bobs and singles in Grandsire Triples -- and the names given to
the different points at which a bob is called -- I propose to leave
this topic for a few more days, until I have had a chance to do a
little more research. Everything  have written about up to now (with
the exception of the Holt's Single) has been from my own knowledge of
bellringing, but the details of the nomenclature of bob-calling is
outside my own experience, so I shall have to do a bit of reading
first. Still, this will be good for my own ringing skills.

Right, the time has come, a little research has been done, and I have
bellringing books propped around the keyboard as I type.

We're going to look at when a conductor might call bobs and singles in
order to form a touch, beginning, once again with Plain Bob Doubles,
and moving on to Grandsire and Stedman. And not forgetting Kent Treble
Bob when we get that far.

To recap: a bob (or a single) is called to change from the plain
course of a method, by switching some of the bells around. A bob or a
single requires a whole pull's notice, and a whole pull is a
handstroke and a backstroke together (or a backstroke and then a
handstroke). So a bob must be called two strokes before it takes
effect.

We'll start by looking at Bob Doubles. Remember that in Bob Doubles
the working bells plain hunt except when the treble leads, at which
point they dodge according to this cycle of work: dodge 3-4 down, 4
blows in 5th, dodge 3-4 up, make 2nds.

And remember that at a bob the bell that would have dodged 3-4 down
instead runs in and leads, and dodges 3-4 down next time; the bell
that makes 4 blows behind is unaffected; the bell that would have made
2nds runs out to the back, and makes 2nds next time; and the bell that
would have dodged 3-4 up, instead makes the bob, ringing 2 blows in
4th place, going back down to the lead, and then next time making 4
blows behind.

We can trace out this path for some random bell (marked by an X in this
diagram), together with the corresponding path of the treble, and
alongside it we mark each of the positions at which a bob might be
called, and the name often given to the calling position. At each
point the call is just the word 'Bob!', and in Plain Bob it is made at
the stroke immediately before the teble leads. We'll discuss the names
themselves next:

X1---
X-1--
-X-1-
--X-1
---X1
---1X
--1-X
-1-X-  // In
1-X--
1--X-
-1X--
-X1--
X--1-
X---1
-X--1
--X1-
--1X-
-1--X // Home
1---X
1---X
-1--X
--1X-
--X1-
-X--1
X---1
X--1-
-X1--
-1X-- // Make or Fourths
1--X-
1-X--
-1-X-
--1-X
---1X
---X1
--X-1
-X-1-
X-1--
X1--- // Out
1X---
1X---
X1---
X-1--
--X-1
etc

These names, odd though they first appear do make sense when you
consider the effect they will have on the course of the bell that we
are observing:

 If a bob is called at the 'In' position, then the bel will run in
 and lead;

 if a bob is called at the 'Make' or 'Fourths' position, then the
 bell makes the bob by making 4ths place;

 if a bob is called at the 'Out' position, then the bell runs out to
 the back;

 and if the bob is called in the 'Home' position, then the bell does
 nothing out of the ordinary as it is unaffected.

When calling a touch the conductor will settle on one bell as the
'observation bell' -- perhaps the bell that they are ringing, or
perhaps another bell. Then they will call the bobs they want when
that bell reaches the appropriate point. For example, a very simple
touch -- perhaps the first that any conductor will learn -- is 'Three
Homes', in which each time the observation bell starts to ring its 4
blows behind the condctor calls a bob -- this is a bob in the Home
position with respect to the observation bell. After the third bob
the bells have returned to a plain course, and the conductor just has
to say 'That's All!' as the bells are about to come back into rounds.
This touch is a 120 (a 'one-twenty'), the full extent of possible changes
that can be rung on 5 bells.

Another simple example has the advantage of leaving one bell entirely
unaffected by the bob calls (because each time they are ringing 4
blows behind). This three-bob touch is made when the observation bell
is at Out, then at Make and then at In. If the observation bell is
the 2, then 5 is unaffected; if it's 3 then 4 is unaffected; if it's
4 then 3 is unaffected; and if it's 5, then 2 is unaffected.

(Of course, the astute will have noticed that calling Out, Make and
In from 2, so that 5 is unaffected, is exactly the same as calling
Three Homes from 5. But we won't worry about that here.)

That's enough for now; next time we'll move on to calling a touch of Grandsire Doubles and Triples.

-----

In writing these notes I am indebted to the book _The Bob Caller's
Companion_ by Steve Coleman, one of a series of 4 invaluable books
available at http://www.ringingbooks.freeserve.co.uk or from Amazon
(certainly from amazon.co.uk anyway).

simon