[r-t] 40320 Spliced S Major

[Richard Smith]

Very clever, Ander.  And like most good ideas, leaves
you wondering why it hadn't been thought of sooner!

Philip Earis wrote:

> "Perhaps something like this? :-)"
>
> Can you make it so that
> the overwork is never changed at the lead-head and the underwork never
> changed at the half-lead?

No!  That's precisely what makes the composition work!  If
you look, you'll notice that there is *always* a change of
overwork at the lead-head and similarly at the underwork.

Structurally it is a bit like a PABS "magic" block but with
asymmetric over and underworks.  This allows you to achieve
the effect of a single at every half-lead and lead-end
without actually having one.  If you look at the effect of
the asymmetric frontwork 36.4-4.5-4-1-34-5-4-36, you'll
notice that it has even parity.

Unlike the minor compositions, it does not use bells making
seconds to determine the method -- instead it uses the bells
crossing in 2-3 at the lead-head or 6-7 at the half-lead.
(You'll notice that the path of these two bells between the
quarter lead and the three-quarters lead are the same for
all the methods.  This is important.)

By having two bells determining the method to be rung, you
can require one underwork if the bells in 6-7 at the
half-lead are in one order, and the reverse underwork if
they are in the opposite order.  As far as I can tell, there
isn't much logic in which pairs are rung in which order --
I'm guessing Ander just chose something that happened to
produce an extent without calls.

As Ander says, there should be plenty of scope for
additional methods.

Richard