#  About Change Ringing 

 

   Details    Written by: Webmaster    Category: [Ringing](/ringing)     Published: 29 May 2013     Created: 29 May 2013     Last Updated: 23 December 2024     Hits: 7039   ![](/images/CategoryIcons/LM_Logo_75-75.webp) Change-ringing is a centuries-old art that continues to this day throughout the UK and also abroad.

The art of *change ringing* is based on sounding all the bells (be there six, eight, ten, or twelve of them) one after the other, but in different orders *(*or *changes)* each time the bells sound.

This becomes possible because each bell rotates through a complete 360deg circle, starting and finishing mouth *upwards,* giving a split second in which the *rate of sounding* can be modified, the bell's clapper striking just once per rotation.

 | **1**2345678   2**1**354768   23**1**45678   324**1**6578   3426**1**758   43627**1**58   463725**1**8   647352**1**8   67453**1**28   7654**1**328   756**1**4238   57**1**62438   5**1**726348   **1**5273648   **1**2537468    2**1**573648   25**1**37468   523**1**4768   5324**1**678   etc. | Acquiring the skill to control a bell to do this takes time. It requires the ringer first to learn to pull the rope sufficiently hard for the bell to complete the 360deg but not so hard as to start a second rotation! In fact, a mechanism known as a "stay and slider" impede the bell's passing the vertical position although they are designed, rather like a fuse in an electrical circuit, to break if an over-enthusiastic pull is made. Having gained bell control, the novice then has to memorise, for the different sequences (or *methods*), the *positions* into which his bell must move. The speed of ringing is then adjusted so that the bell sounds at exactly the right moment. The first few changes of Grandsire Triples are given here, this particular method having the tenor (the term for the largest bell being rung, in this case bell number eight) always ringing last (or *covering*).      Each sequence takes about two seconds to ring. Notice how each bell **moves** at most **only one position** on successive occasions. The precision of the timing of **every** ringer, or *striking* with a regular rhythm, is absolutely crucial if the overall effect is to be acceptable to the listener.      Some changes sound **particularly musical**  at certain points in certain methods. The names given to methods have romantic sounds such as Grandsire Triples, Cambridge Surprise Maximus, Plain Bob Minor, Stedman Caters, Kent Treble Bob Major (a name familiar to those who have read Dorothy Sayers' famous detective story *The Nine Tailors*). The final part of the name in each case indicates how many bells change positions.  As with many specialist activities, bellringing (rarely called "campanology" by its practitioners) has a sub-culture all of its own. There are more than 5000 churches which possess a ring of five bells or more, most of them in the UK. And churches in the USA and Australia, for example, are putting in new rings at quite a rate. So ringing at a new tower is, for many, a recordable event, ringing visitors often joining the local band's mid-week practice night, the identity of which appears in *Dove's Guide* (the bellringers' equivalent of *Crockford* and now available [on-line](http://dove.cccbr.org.uk/home.php)).      Others will prefer to spend three or more hours ringing non-stop, an event known as a *peal*. Shorter performances (a *quarter peal*) provide just the right length of ringing time for a church service. Then there is the weekly newspaper, [The Ringing World](http://www.ringingworld.co.uk/) , published by ringers, written by ringers, with a circulation of over 4000 copies. One can even send articles for publication these days by electronic mail! |
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(With thanks to the [Llandaff Cathedral Guild of Ringers](http://llandaff.llanmon.org.uk/) )

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For more information please see the Recruitment Presentations below or contact [the Association's PRO](/contacts/association-contacts/public-relations-officer).

If you don't have MicroSoft PowerPoint on your PC then, to view the Presentation Slideshow, you will require [PowerPoint Viewer 2007](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=048dc840-14e1-467d-8dca-19d2a8fd7485&DisplayLang=en) (25.8MB).

The Recruitment Presentation is also available in PDF below.

[Recruitment Presentation (PPS)](/component/phocadownload/category/association-documents/about-change-ringing?download=69:recruitment-presentation-pps&Itemid=621)



[Recruitment Presentation (PDF)](/component/phocadownload/category/association-documents/about-change-ringing?download=68:recruitment-presentation-pdf&Itemid=621)





 

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