#full circle ringing

[rat-onna-stick]

wait ok. nobody asked for this but you're all gonna good and goddamn get it anyway. this is the basics of change ringing/full circle ringing/method bellringing

how do the bells work?

'full circle ringing' is exactly that: the bells are on circular pulleys and can rotate approximately 370°. they can be resting in a down position, with the bell facing in the normal way and no momentum in the rope or bell. they can also exist in an upwards position, where the hollow part of the bell is facing upwards - this is the dangerous position, and if you pull on the sally (fluffy bit of the rope), the bell will ring due to stored momentum. the bell can also be upwards but resting on the stay - the bell can still ring from here though!

what on earth are methods?

methods are ways of creating melodies on a set of usually six bells. each method starts in rounds (the bells ring in the order 123456) but then the ringers swap positions in the order to change the melody. for example, to get from rounds to queens, the method would be 123456, 214365, 241635, 246135. each bell can swap one position either side every time it rings, on either the handstroke or the backstroke. essentially the numbers are getting pushed around in the order. take the treble (1) in rounds to queens: it starts in the first position, then goes to second, third, then fourth. a player would be mentally following this 'line' in their head. bellringing patterns can look pretty crazy once you get into advanced methods!!

ok thank you for reading my little ramble about bellringing, im still learning myself but if anyone has any questions please send me asks!!!

[missedurdodge]

Bbg what is bell ringing

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.

Anyway, that's pretty much the gist of the bell bit. Coming up next, the rope bit!