PLAIN BOB MINOR - TOUCHES 1

 

In this session we will be looking at the calling positions in Plain Bob Minor and other Minor methods where the Tenor is unaffected by the bobs. We will see that the underlying theory is exactly the same as that for bobs at Home in Plain Bob Doubles.

 

Calling Positions

 

The following diagram shows all the calling positions along with their usual names:

 

123456                        135264                        156342                        164523                        142635

214365                        312546                        513624                        615432                        416253

241635                        321456                        531264                        651342                        461523

426153                        234165                        352146                        563124                        645132

462513                        243615                        325416                        536214                        654312

645231                        426351                        234561                        352641                        563421

654321                        462531                        243651                        325461                        536241

563412                        645213                        426315                        234516                        352614

536142                        654123                        462135                        243156                        325164

351624                        561432                        641253                        421365                        231546

315264 *                     516342 *                     614523 *                     412635 *                     213456 *

132546                        153624                        165432                        146253                        124365

135264 W                   156342 4                     164523 B                    142635 I                      123456 H

 

   *       =          Bob called here

  W      =          Wrong

   I        =          In

  B       =          Before

  4        =          Fourths

  H       =          Home

 

                                    Fig. 1  - Plain Bob Minor calling positions.

 

Points Arising From The Diagram

 

Terminology

 

Bobs at Wrong are so called because the Tenor is doing what it did at the start but the wrong way round.

 

Bobs at 4ths are so called because the Tenor makes 4ths and ends up as 4th's place bell.

 

Bobs at Before are so called because the Tenor leads just before the Treble and "runs out" to end up as 3rd's place bell.

 

Bobs at In are so called because the Tenor "runs in" at them and ends up as 2nd's place bell.

 

Bobs at Home are so called because the Tenor ends up in its home position, i.e. in the position where it started the course.

 

It is important to realise that it is the position that the Tenor ends up in as a result of the call that gives the calling place its name and not where it would have ended up otherwise.

 

 

 

Touches Of Plain Bob Minor

 

There are loads of touches of Plain Bob Minor so the following examples are a selection of common and useful ones, using the calling positions W and H:

 

                        120                                          360                                          300

            W        H         2345                W        H         2345                W        H         2345

             -          -          4523                -          -          4523                3         3         2345

             -          -          2345                -                      3425

                                                            Repeat twice

 

                        120 *                           240 *                           180                              180

                        23456                          23456                          23456                          23456

                        35264              -           23564              5          42356              1          23564

            -           35642                          36245              5          34256              5          52364

            Repeat 4 times                                    64352              5          23456              5          35264

                                                -           64523                                                  4          23456 P

                                                Repeat 4 times

 

Care needs to be taken when calling the 120 and 240 marked *. The reason is left as an exercise.

 

Quarter Peals And Peals

 

A quarter peal of 1260 Plain Bob Minor requires two touches: one of 720 changes and one of 540. Now, for mathematical reasons it is impossible to obtain touches of more than 360 without the use of singles. Therefore, until we look at singles we can't conduct touches with singles in them. However we can say that any touch with just bobs in it can be doubled with singles to give twice the length and is guaranteed to be true. Therefore if the 360 above is called as shown but a single is added at the final H and then the whole lot, including extra single, is repeated we will have a true 720. This 720 is known as the "standard extent". The touch of 300 can be doubled with a single at the final H instead of the bob to give 600. The 720 and 600 will give a perfectly acceptable quarter peal of 1320.

 

Peals require 7 extents to be called and these extents can all be the same or can all be different. The 360 above can be doubled to 720 as mentioned above and it can also be doubled by calling extra singles at any of the homes that don't have bobs. Actually any one of the homes in the 360 can be replaced with a single and the whole lot repeated. Also any of the wrongs can be replaced with a single and the whole lot repeated, although for musical reasons it is best to call a single instead of one of the bobs in the first course of a part rather than the second.

 

The Coursing Order On Six Bells

 

This is a bit of revision because it was mentioned in Session 2. By looking at the course of Plain Bob above it can be seen that in each lead of the method the bells, ignoring the Treble, which moves about, come to lead as follows:

 

            Lead               Leading Order

            1                      2 4 6 5 3

            2                      3 2 4 6 5

            3                      5 3 2 4 6

            4                      6 5 3 2 4

            5                      4 6 5 3 2

 

There is the usual underlying pattern here:  The odd numbered bells lead in descending number order and the even numbered bells then lead in ascending number order. In other words this is very similar to the situation for Plain Bob Doubles except that the 6th, an even numbered bell, has been added. As usual we wish to start from a fixed starting point, the Tenor, and cut down the size of the row of numbers we keep in our minds. We therefore take the 6th as the start of the coursing order to give 65324 and them omit it altogether because we know it will always be there. In other words, the coursing order for minor is 5324.

Of course, as in Doubles, there may be pragmatic reasons for starting the coursing order somewhere else, such as a conductor who wants always to ring the 2nd. As with Doubles this can be done by rotating the coursing order to get the new observation bell to the start and then modifying the coursing order with respect to the calling position occupied by that bell. As with Doubles the official coursing order always starts with the Tenor and by always doing it this way a greater familiarity is acquired but the choice is with the conductor.

 

We need to expand our definition of coursing order at this point and not think of it strictly as the order in which the bells lead because this only applies to Plain Bob whereas the coursing order is the same for many other methods. We touched on this in Session 2 and it concerns the relationship of the coursing order to the order in which the bells do their dodges. The following table illustrates this:

 

                                                          Bell in:  2nds    3-4d     5-6d     5-6u     3-4u

                                    Lead End 1                3          2          4          6          5

                                    Lead End 2                5          3          2          4          6

                                    Lead End 3                6          5          3          2          4

                                    Lead End 4                4          6          5          3          2

                                    Lead End 5                2          4          6          5          3

 

Each row of the table is a rotation of the coursing order and by reading it from left to right whilst taking the dodges in Plain Bob order it is possible to know what each bell is doing. For example, taking the 6th as the reference point, we can see that whatever dodge the 6th is doing the 5th, which is the next bell in the coursing order, is doing the next dodge in Plain Bob order. Similarly the 3rd is two bells further than the 6th in the coursing order and is always two dodges ahead of the 6th in the method. We will see in future that this relationship holds whatever the method.

 

In other words a better definition of "coursing order" is something like "the order of the bells doing the dodges taken in Plain Bob dodging order". There is more to say about this but we'll save it for now.

 

Transposition Of Bobs At Home

 

We must look at the fifth lead continued into the first lead of the next course at both a plain lead and a bobbed lead:

 

         Plain Lead                Bobbed Lead

 

142635                           142635

416253                           416253

461523                           461523

645132                           645132

654312                           654312

563421                           563421

536241                           536241

352614                           352614

325164                           325164

231546                           231546

213456                           213456

124365                           124365

123456 *1                      142356 *2

214365                           413265

241635                           431625

426153                           346152

462513                           364512

645231                           635421

654321                           653241

…                                   …

 

 

If we compare rows *1 and *2 we can see that:

 

In row *2 the 5th and 6th are where they are in row *1

In row *2 the 4th is where the 2nd is in row *1

In row *2 the 2nd is where the 3rd is in row *1

In row *2 the 3rd is where the 4th is in row *1

 

Considering the coursing order:                                  (6)5 3 2 4

Following the bob:

 

            The 5th and 6th remain where they are:                     (6)5 * * *

The 4th takes the place of the 2nd:                 (6)5 * 4 *

The 2nd takes the place of the 3rd:                (6)5 2 4 *

The 3rd takes the place of the 4th:                 (6)5 2 4 3

 

The new coursing order is therefore:    5 2 4 3

 

Put more generally, the last three bells in the coursing order, A B C, are affected by the bob and become B A C. This is exactly like the way the bells were affected in Doubles. For a bob at Home it is the same three bells affected in the same way.

 

Transposition Of Bobs At Wrong

 

We must look at the first lead continued into the second lead of a plain course and compare it with the first lead followed by the lead produced after a bob. Look at these figures:

 

Plain Lead               Bobbed Lead

 

123456                           123456

214365                           214365

241635                           241635

426153                           426153

462513                           462513

645231                           645231

654321                           654321

563412                           563412

536142                           536142

351724                           351624

315264                           315264

132546                           132546

135264 *1                      123564 *2

312546                           215346

321456                           251436

234165                           524163

243615                           542613

426351                           456231

462531                           465321

….                                  ….

 

If we compare rows *1 and *2 we can see that:

 

In row *2 the 4th and 6th are where they are in row *1

In row *2 the 2nd is where the 3rd is in row *1

In row *2 the 3rd is where the 5th is in row *1

In row *2 the 5th is where the 2nd is in row *1

Considering the coursing order:                                  (6)5 3 2 4

Following the bob:

 

            The 4th and 6th remain where they are:                     (6)* * * 4

The 2nd takes the place of the 3rd:                (6)* 2 * 4

The 3rd takes the place of the 5th:                 (6)3 2 * 4

The 5th takes the place of the 2nd:                 (6)3 2 5 4

 

The new coursing order is therefore:    3 2 5 4

 

Put more generally, the first 3 bells in the coursing order, A B C, have become B C A with the rest unchanged.

 

General Points About The Transpositions For W and H

 

When we looked at Doubles it seemed that the transpositions for each calling place were all different and yet they weren't. The underlying transposition was always ABC => BCA but because the Tenor was affected at some calling places the transposition needed to include something to keep the Tenor at the start. This made each transposition look quite different.

 

When we look at the transpositions for W and H in Minor, in which the Tenor is unaffected, we see that it is just the basic transposition that is needed. It is only necessary to know which bells this transposition will apply to and that is something which just needs to be learned.

 

There is an additional aspect to the basic transposition which can be extremely useful at times: It directly tells you which bells will do each bit of the bob. We need to compare the affects of the bobs at W and H in the diagrams above. For the H we had:

 

            124365

            142356

 

in which the bells A B C were 3 2 4. Now, 3 2 4 became 2 4 3 and from the figures we see that bell 3 (bell A) made the bob, bell 2 (bell B) ran out and bell 4 (bell C) ran in. In short, for the three bells A B C affected at a H, A made the bob, B ran out and C ran in.

 

Similarly, for the W we had:

 

            132546

            123564

 

in which the bells A B C were 5 3 2, which became 3 2 5. In this case bell 5 (bell A) made the bob, bell 3 (bell B) ran out and bell 2 (bell C) ran in. In short, for the three bells A B C affected at a H, A made the bob, B ran out and C ran in.

 

The way that a bob at W works is exactly the same as a bob at H. Bell A makes the bob, bell B runs out and bell C runs in. This applies equally to the H in Plain Bob doubles and Bristol Surprise Maximus.

 

Summary Of Transpositions For Each Calling Position

 

For the standard coursing order taken from the Tenor we have the following transpositions:

 

Calling Position         Transposition             Notes

For a bob at Home      ABC => BCA             ABC are the last 3 bells in the coursing order

For a bob at Wrong     ABC => BCA             ABC are the first 3 bells in the coursing order

 

If the coursing order from a different bell is being used the transpositions are exactly the same for that bell's coursing order when they do the work above as they are for the Tenor's coursing order.

 

Examples Of Coursing Order Transpositions For Some Complete Touches

 

The following examples take us through the coursing orders that will come up, using the transpositions above, during the calling of each of the four touches. They assume that the 6th is being rung:

 

1. Three Homes

 

Starting from 5324 the first Home produces 5243 (BCA on the last 3 bells), the second Home produces 5432 (BCA) and the third Home produces 5324 (BCA).

 

2. Three Wrongs

 

Starting from 5324 the first Wrong produces 3254 (BCA on the first 3 bells), the second Wrong produces 2534 (BCA) and the third Wrong produces 5324 (BCA).

 

3.                     120

 

            W        H         2345

             -          -          4523

             -          -          2345

 

This touch consists of two courses with the first called W H and then the second also called W H. In other words the calls come in the order W H W H. Starting from 5324 the first W gives 3254 (BCA on first 3 bells), the first H gives 3542 (BCA on second 3 bells), the second W gives 5432 (BCA on first 3 bells) and the second H gives 5324 (BCA on the second 3 bells).

 

4.                     360

 

            W        H         2345

             -          -          4523

             -                      3425

            Repeat twice

 

In this touch the bobs are at W H W. From 5324 this gives the following:

 

            W        3254

            H         3542

            W        5432

            W        4352

            H         4523

            W        5243

            W        2453

            H         2534

            W        5324

 

This illustrates another useful point. Notice from the touch that although there is a W in each course there is a H in the first course but not the second in each part. It is very easy to forget whether to call a H or not. Now notice that the 5th comes back to its starting place, and therefore its own place in the coursing order, after the second W in each part. This is a clue. If the 5th is in its own place in the coursing order as a H is approached then there is no call.

 

 

 

Summary

 

We have seen how to extend the coursing order to account for the extra bell, the 6th, in Minor.

 

We have named the calling places for a Minor method and we have looked at the transpositions for the two calling places where the Tenor is unaffected by bobs. In doing so we have seen the underlying transposition, ABC => BCA, a bit more clearly. We have also seen how the coursing order can be used to see what the bells will do at a bob.

 

A selection of touches has been offered.