F.E

I've decided not enough autistic people on the internet know about bell ringing (change ringing, full circle ringing, whatever you want to call it)

This is deeply wrong to me because I have a running theory that all bell ringers are, in fact, on the spectrum (especially the good ones, nobody who can ring surprise methods is typical)

So I'm putting my intense interest in this hobby to use by rambling hysterically about it like the pathetic nerd I am.

Apologies in advance for any poor writing and factual weirdness, the alphabet is my enemy and grammar a much larger foe.

This was the one I was excited for!!

So, the bell is ringing, but we're ignoring it for now to talk about places. We've discussed them a little before in call changes, but let's get them straight.

Each bell has a number, and each bell has a place. The number of the bell you ring will not change, it's like that bells name. The place of the bell will change.

Places are usually marked like '1st' or '2nd' rather than '1' or '2', and that's how I'll be referring to them.

Your place is essentially just when you ring in the order. The 2nds place bell rings second. The 1sts place bell leads, ringing first.

Now, when we were ringing call changes, we were swapping around the places of two bells at a time, and doing that with stretches of unchanged ringing in between.

What we're going to do now, is have most of the bells change their place on every stroke (each time the bell actually rings, handstroke and backstroke) in some kind of pattern. The bells are never actually going to stay in one place for very long. These are methods (in the loosest meaning of the term)

Here is where I bring in the Blue Line! This magical thing is like sheet music for bell ringers. It tells us the pattern of places our bell needs to ring in. It's one way to easily learn a new method.

A blue line graph can look like this:

(Images taken from the app 'Methodology', my lifesaver)

Each row is one 'change'. This graph shows us the changes made by the treble. We can see it starting in rounds, before moving out to 2nds place, then 3rds, and so on right out to 6ths. It stays there for a blow, before coming back in again. If we traced through every other number, we can see they'd do much the same thing.

This is what it looks like with every bell having it's own line:

(Image taken from the Association of Ringing Teachers website)

Now, this looks fairly straightforward. You only have to keep track of one of these lines, and you're basically just going up and down.

Here is another blue line graph:

(Image taken from the ringingmethods.co.uk site. Another very useful one)

Top left shows what one section of it looks like all together. From there, reading the chunks left to right, top to bottom, is one full 'Plain Course'

This is Canterbury Delight Minor. You'll see the treble, in red, does the same thing in each chunk. This is pretty standard for a method. But the 2, the blue line, is all over the place!

As I get into talking about methods, you're going to see these diagrams a lot as I explain what's going on, so get used to them.

So, I've written a lot about ringing. Like, frankly far too much and I'm not anywhere near finished.

But I've most been talking about the process of ringing itself. So, here's an aside about the community around bell ringing and how it's structured.

Now, if you couldn't tell, I live in the UK, which is the primary location of change ringing. The structure I'm talking about in this post is how I know it over here, but it could work very differently elsewhere.

If there's anything different or interesting where you ring, please tell me! I wanna know!!

At the very top of our pyramid is the CCCBR, or the Central Council or Church Bell Ringers. They're the big shots. Their role is pretty much to coordinate the rest of us, and also to solidify rules regarding change ringing (The definition of a peal, for example)

If you're not particularly involved in the politics of ringing, you're unlikely to need to know much about the CCCBR, but your guild, association, or society potentially has a representative in it.

So, let's head down a step now to the guilds, societies, and associations (I'm just going to refer to them all as societies for simplicity)

Most big bellringing societies are territorial. This doesn't mean we battle over the towers, simply that the group oversees the towers in a specific geographical location. For example, the Oxford Diocesan Guild of Church Bell Ringers oversees the ringing in Oxford and it's surrounding area.

A territorial society distributes funds towards tower upkeep and restoration, as well as organises guild wide events and outings. Each has a guild master or other form of leader.

They usually cost a small yearly fee to enter, which goes towards the tower funds, and cost of events and outings.

Non territorial societies are for different groups within ringing, and there's one for pretty much anything if you look hard enough. The Ladies guild, for example, is pretty self explanatory. They'll do much the same activities, meeting up to ring together or allocate funds.

Now, territorial guilds can cover hundreds of towers. So, to keep a better control over things, they're often split into branches called Districts. Your district is a much smaller collection of towers and ringers in your local area.

A district may hold monthly district wide practice sessions, smaller events and competitions, outings, and so on. This is the community you will see most outside of your tower, and most ringers will have rung at many or all of the towers in their district.

Finally, we have your tower. This is usually where you live, or where you ring most regularly. Each tower has a tower captain, and memberships can be paid or free. However, you do not need to be a member of a tower to ring there, as many towers accept guests regularly.

A Band is another term in ringing used to describe a group of people ringing together, and usually refers to the ringers themselves at a tower.

Some bands actually ring at more than one tower. If there's several in an area, but not enough ringers for separate bands, they'll group up and rotate between the towers.

Towers are usually fairly tight nit groups from my experience. They'll often maintain yearly traditions of barbeques, dinners, and outings. Ringing is a team activity, so getting to know your team is always worthwhile. I don't just ring for the silly numbers!

I hope this wasn't entirely inaccurate, as solid information on this can be difficult to get, especially when each group is so different. That, and this is harder for me to explain than the fun number stuff.

Hello! Is the bell ringing?

For now, we're assuming yes. Actually, 6 of them are. These bells are ringing in rounds, to start with. So, this is the order our bells are ringing in:

123456

So, bell 2 is following bell 1, 3 is following 2, and so on. 1 is leading, it's ringing first every time.

Nice. But hearing that, over and over again, isn't too exciting. We want patterns, we want variety. We're going to call a change.

This order is called queens:

135246

We want to rearrange our bells to ring in this order. Why? Why not.

Now, due to the fact that these bells are massive bits of metal, there's only so much we can speed them up at a time.

Take the 5, which going from being the 5th bell to ring (5th place) to being the 3rd bell to ring (3rd place). If we try to make it do that instantly, it's ringer is unlikely to appreciate you, especially if it's a heavy or unweildy bell.

To prevent this, we 'swap' bells round one at a time, or at least so that any bells involved are only moving 1 place up or down the order (up meaning to ring closer to the end, and vice versa)

For example, to get to queens from rounds, we could really do with bringing bell number 2 out towards the back of the order. So, let's start by swapping it with bell number 3.

"2 to 3", literally '2 follows 3', is the call made at handstroke, and at the next handstroke, the bells swap.

Bell number 2 holds up (slows down) slightly just for that handstroke, to ring after the 3. Likewise, the 3 pulls in (speeds up) slightly to ring before the 2. They continue doing that until they're told to do something else.

(In this example we are calling 'up', other ringers may instead word this as "3 to 1")

This gets us to:

132456

Now, we also want the 4 to be near the back. If we swapped 2 and 4 now, we'd only be bringing it closer to the front, which we don't want. So, we're now going to call "4 to 5". 4 follows 5, and so we get this:

132546

The final thing we need to do, then, is move the 2 into it's place. So, we're swapping bell 2 with bell 5, "2 to 5". 2 follows the 5, resulting in:

135246

Woo! Now, this is all well and good from an outside perspective, but when you're actually ringing, you really want to know who you're following (ringing after)

If the call "2 to 3" is made from rounds, the 2 doesn't have to think at all, it's just been told who to follow. But how does the 3 know who to follow?

One way of thinking about it is trying to work out which bell has nobody following them. Bell 2 was following someone else before, but that has just changed, so whoever the 2 was following no longer has anyone after them. That means, it must be you!

If we're going from rounds, as the 3 following the 2, we know from the get go that the 2 is following the 1. Hence, now we follow the 1!

Occasionally, the bells under you will change, without involving you. For example, in this situation, the 4 starts off following the 3. But, when the 2 is called to follow the 3 (aka called 'over' the 3, as some people say), you can't do that as well.

But, thinking of it the same way, with the 2 moving places to follow the 3, who's following the 2? That's you now!

It can take a little while to really get the hang of this, but it's always useful to not only know which bell you're following, but the bell they're following as well.

At the same time, look confused enough and somebody will usually shout out who you're after.

This is where ringing starts becoming more number-y, and we actually get to think a little bit!

Now, this was probably pretty incomprehensible. But, if you do have questions, ask them. I'm too far gone, and crave the info dump. Or read an article that explains it better, I dunno.

So, bell is not ringing...huh.

To start ringing with other people, we need to make sure everyone is co-ordinated. When pulling off in rounds, heavier bells need warning or else they're not going to be ringing in time.

So, to start things off, the treble has to call out to all the ringers some variantion of:

"Catch hold" (optional, rare) Translation: shut up and actually put the rope in your hand rather than talking

"Look to" Translation: About to start ringing, please standby

"Trebles going" Translation: My bell is on the balance point and yours should be to

"She's gone" Translation: My bell is actively in motion I beg of you do the same.

And there we go, bells are ringing!

These phrases will change between ringers and towers, and everyone has a bit of their own spin on the intonation, given you're usually raising your voice.

Now, before ringing someone will have hopefully been declared the conductor, and they'll take things from there. They could be the treble, but it's not garunteed, the conductor will be able to call from whichever bell they're ringing on (hopefully)

So they'll do their thing, call something fun, you'll find out soon enough, but now we want to stop ringing all at the same time. The conductor will call "Stand" as they are ringing the handstroke. And at the handstroke after that, everyone attempts to set their bell.

'Stand' is hopefully called because you're finished ringing. 'Stand' is also occasionally called when everything has gone wrong and the conductor has given up. Likewise, if everything has gone wrong but the conductor hasn't entirely given up, they'll call "Rounds", which, surprisingly enough, means it's time to ring in rounds again.

So, there's like bells, they're in towers? Crazy shit.

Your typical bell tower has about 3-12 bells. 12 bell towers are usually cathedrals. Most bell towers have 6 bells, many have 8, and a handful have 3, 5, 10, or 12. No odd numbers of bells past 5, I'm afraid.

The weight of a bell is described using pounds, quarters, and hundredweight (cwt-qt-lb). For example, the tenor bell at Mary Le Bow is 41-3-21, or 2131 kg, about the weight of a rhino. Typically, we just describe the weight of a bell by it's hundredweight, so 42 here.

When ringing at a new tower, people like to know the weight of the tenor, and it's also used to describe the tower as a whole.

All bells ring differently, because of their size or make. Big bells ring slower than little bells, for example.

And now, an incomplete list of ways a tower or bell can be described, insulted, or otherwise warned for:

Flighty: Typically used to describe small bells that 'drop' quickly, or generally ring quickly

Odd struck: A bell that rings slower at one or both strokes, something that you have to account for when ringing to keep the rhythm. The bane of any striking competitor

Long draft: Used to describe a tower. A high ceilinged ringing room without guides, meaning there's more of a chance for ropes to go flying and get tangled. Not fun for new ringers

Short draft: The exact opposite. Easier to ring with, unless you're tall

Slips the wheel: The rope running alongside the wheel is prone to slipping off. Keep tension on rope at all times.

Jumpy/jumps the wheel: Sally will occasionally 'jump' at handstroke, giving everyone nearby a heart attack as you struggle to catch it. My nemesis.

Deep set: The point at which the bell sets is 'higher', you need to let it rise more than you'd expect to set it, and put more effort in when pulling it off to ring

Light set: the exact opposite. Be gentler when setting the bell, or it'll bump the stay and come right back down again.

Slow/fast: self explanatory, just the speed a bell rings at. Faster bells have to hold up at the balance point for longer when ringing alongside slower bells

Interesting: Wild card, never good. All bells feel different and some bells feel bad.

Hello! I'm just about to ring and frankly this bit is pretty easy (in theory, takes a bit longer to do in practice) so let's make it quick.

Bell is ringing!! Yipee!!

Speed up? Sure! Take in rope/come up your rope/shorten your rope, and the many other ways ringers will tell you the same thing. This means: bring your hands up the tail end (rope part that you're holding) by a little bit.

When your hands go up for the backstroke, there's less rope for the bell to use to swing with, your body is keeping it from going that bit further up, so it doesn't swing as far, ringing faster. You also grab the sally higher up, which does the same thing. Don't let that bell get to the balance point!

Slow down? Hell yeah. Let out rope, move hands down tail end so bell has more space to swing, and get up to that balance point to linger. Catch sally slightly slower, and on both strokes be careful not to let it bump the stay because it'll come down pretty fast and that's not what we're trying to do here! Taking notes? Don't! You can't read them while ringing.

Now, you're probably not asking yourself what Rounds is, but I'm going to tell you anyway! Let's give all the bells a number. Lightest bell, highest pitch, is number 1. Each heavier bell gets a higher number. Remember this, it's about to come up a lot.

We're gonna assume our fictional bell tower has 6 bells. So our heaviest, lowest pitch bell is number 6.

In rounds, bells ring in this order:

123456

Descending scale!! That's it. This is where everything starts from. You follow the bell that rings just before you, and make small adjustments to your ringing speed to hopefully fit in just behind them.

And this repeats, again and again, until it doesn't. That's rounds, baby!

I'm just about getting to the bit where we bring other people into the equation, but first let's talk about bell towers as a whole.

A bell tower is typically part of a church, given we're ringing church bells. We've gotta be nice to the church or they don't let us ring.

(Picture taken by me, and also my pfp! It's Mary-le-bow, in London, a very good tower to boast about ringing in)

If you're in the UK, like me, you can choose between any 6642 (according to dove, the website that has most of them listed) ringable bell towers. Roughly 1 in 7 towns or villages here have one. Almost every village nearby me has a functioning bell tower, it's great!

If you live literally anywhere else, you have 145 towers. Sorry.

A bell tower will have a ringing room, either on the ground floor, or up a set of usually very tight spiral stairs (at least in the UK).

Ringing rooms, and bell towers as a whole, come in all manner of sizes, shapes, and states of repair. But they have the bit of the rope we need in them, so that's nice.

Above that, separated often by a floor or small chamber so we don't go deaf, is the belfry. It has the bells. It's usually very dusty, and the bells are sort of crammed together like Tetris pieces.

You only really ever see the belfry if you help with maintenance or repairs, but it's worthwhile to ask to head up there at least once so you can actually see the thing you're rotating at high speeds.

Really, that's all a bell tower is. Every single one is wildly different, it makes outings to other towers exciting.

At some point, I'll talk about bells themselves, and all the different words we use to describe them (far too many) as well as the organisational system of ringers in the UK.

So, change ringing requires some human effort. While the momentum of a bell does most of the work keeping it swinging, us flesh folk have to make up for the energy lost.

That big wheel our bells are attached to has a rope there also. Rope runs out through a hole in the wheel, then along a groove in that wheel, which you can see below. From there, it's through some pulleys (sometimes) and down to the ringing room, usually a floor or two below.

(Image credits to me again!)

We don't see any of this bit though!

Once it's down to the ringing room, each rope has a colourful fluffy bit around head height called the sally. Below that is called the tail end, and these two are the important bits.

The tail end will usually fall right to the floor, so they're often tied up, like below

(Image credits to barnhambroomchurchbellsappeal.blogspot.com)

To ring a bell, we pull the sally and the tail end in sequence. That is, so long as the bell is up (upside down)

The first part of ringing is to actually get the bell moving. This is called pulling off. When a bell is up and not swinging (resting on it's stay, just past the balance point) it is 'set'. We need to change that.

When we pull off, we grab hold of the sally in both hands, reaching up as far as we can to do so, and simply pull it downwards. As our hands reach roughly our midriff, we let go. It's sort of like throwing a ball at the ground. This is the handstroke.

Once the initial pulling is done, the bell has tipped past the balance point and starting to swing the other way.

From the perspective of the bell ringinger, the sally moves down, and then suddenly begins to fly upwards as the bell swings past it's 'down' position. You can see why we let go.

The sally will rise far above your head, taking the rest of the rope with it. The bell swings right to the other side, so now we need to get it back again. That's where the long bit of rope after the sally comes in handy.

We pull the tail end down now, also starting with both hands above our head. Here's the backstroke. This gives the bell a push to swing back the other way. The sally comes back down, before beginning to rise again. This is where we catch it as it rises, pulling it down again to start the whole process over.

Now, letting a long rope be pulled upwards very fast is a good way to have rope flying everywhere. That, and trying to catch the tail end to do the backstroke would be a nightmare.

To fix this, we make sure we're holding onto the tail end at all times.

While transferring hands to and from the sally, the tail end is pinched between the thumb and forefinger of our non dominant hand. When we're actually holding the sally, it sits between our thumb and the sally itself.

That way, we know where the tail end is, and it's not flying all over the place. However, this is usually the harder part to learn when you start ringing, and the reason the handstroke and backstroke are often taught separately, with your teacher ringing the other half.

Failing to catch the sally as it rises, dropping the tail end, or letting either the sally or tail end rise too high, and you'll probably bump the stay (everyone's favourite matchstick). Don't do that.

So, ringing is really just repeating the handstroke and backstroke indefinitely. When we want to stop, rather than pulling the rope back down at handshake, we let it rise just that bit higher (gradually and under control, hopefully) until it sets again.

MOMENTUM!

In a bell tower, the bells are above you in a belfry. In full circle ringing, they are attached to a big ass wheel. When the wheel turns, the bell turns!

(image credits to me, performing maintenance!)

Bells make sound when something hits them hard. A calm, reasonable way of doing this is to make a hammer hit the bell. This is boring.

A more exciting way of making sound is to have the bell swing side to side just a little, so the clapper (big stick inside the bell) swings with it, and then suddenly restrict the movement of the bell. The clapper is surprised, and does not stop. The subsequent collision makes a sound.

But this is quiet. And boring. And has limited speed control.

So bell ringers decided, why not turn the bell all the way round until it's upside down? Like a maniac!!!

So we just keep swinging the bell with more momentum until it goes right the way round. As it approaches being exactly upside down, it slows down, the clapper hits the bell, and boom! Sound. Big sound, hopefully.

But we don't go right over, we then let the bell swing back again the other way. The momentum of the bell does most of the work, and is the reason why bell ringers aren't usually super buff, we're only compensating for the small amount of momentum lost along the way.

The bell going right the way over isn't very useful, as we'd run out of rope to pull. To stop this happening by accident, we have that little bit of wood you see on the left of my picture!

It's name is the Stay, and we need to be very nice to it, because it's actually fairly fragile.

If the bell goes over the balance point, that wood hits a small sliding board underneath the bell, and usually gets bounced back over the other way.

To stop the bell from ringing, we let it get right the way upside down, to the balance point, and then ease it over just that little bit further until our stay rests against the sliding board.

Give the bell enough momentum, however, and the stay breaks. Bell goes right over the balance, scares everyone, and (purposefully or otherwise) gradually loses enough momentum to rest downwards again.

My tower, and several others, let people keep their first broken stay, as you stand victorious over your unintentional corpse. I have yet to achieve this, though it is something that happens eventually to most ringers.