[r-t] Composing spliced treble-dodging major

[Philip Earis]

Peter King:
"On the subject of software to assist in putting together compositions of 
spliced I'd like to mention Philip Saddleton's SCAMP (available from his 
website)...it is certainly a very effective way to put together compositions 
of say 23ATW"

I saw SCAMP on Philip Saddleton's website a couple of years ago, and 
downloaded it but never used it - I didn't really appreciate what it was 
capable of.  After reading your message I decided to give it another go, and 
I must say it's absolutely fantastic. It is extremely powerful, and makes 
composing atw compositions of spliced easy and fun.  No knowledge of 
falseness is required at all - it very much leads itself to trial and 
improvement.

I had a moment of clarity when using it, seeing how people have been able to 
do so many amazing things. I can't recommend it highly enough. One tip - for 
it to work, the method libraries must be saved without an extension - it 
won't work if they're saved as .txt files (as windows likes to do 
automatically).

"...It is perhaps less useful if you have a set of methods in mind that you 
wish to splice together (although you can limit the methods selection by 
editing the methods file)"

This I would disagree with, though.  I started out with the intention of 
composing a stonking cyclic peal of 23-spliced.  I had about 18 very decent 
stand-alone methods I definitely wanted in there, picking the best methods 
from Smith's & Chandler's & adding a few choice others (which have been 
praised on this list previously), & leaving out the dross. After a few hours 
playing I managed to get everything in to my satisfaction:

========
5152 Spliced Surprise Major (23m)
PJE

 12345678 A  Cumberland Row S
 13527486 L- Malpas S
 14235678 A  Anodyne S
 12547386 B  Yorkshire S
 17856234 A  Lancashire S
 18673542 H  Essex S
 13462857 F- Lessness S
 18634725 B- Dorchester S
 16425873 F  Richmond S
 12684357 L- Cornwall S
 13826745 M- Ditchling S
 12386745 A  Tellurium S
 13624857 C  Cassiobury S
 15748623 E  Silchester S
 16435278 K  Shoesmith Hall S
 18273564 F  London S
 17852436 E- Cray S
 16457382 M  Yeading S
 15634278 M  Double Dublin S
 13526847 M  Belfast S
 12385764 E  Thetford S
 17842635 G  Primrose S
 18273456 M- Bristol S
 17823456

                 Odd     Even      Total

xxxx5678 etc =    2  +    15    =    17
xxxx8765 etc =   16  +     0    =    16
5678xxxx etc =    6  +     8    =    14
8765xxxx etc =    1  +    12    =    13
xxxxxx87     =  127  +     2    =   129


Silchester is 2nds-place Buckfastleigh
Anodyne = & 56.3.56.4-2-36-4-5-56-5, 12

Belfast may be replaced by Chertsey/Bristol/Double Doublin
Dorchester may be replaced by Jersey/Pudsey
Essex may be replaced by Huddersfield (loses 2 xxxx5678s etc)
Richmond may be replaced by Northampton (loses 4 xxxx8765s etc)
========

If I can use the software then anyone else can! PABS - you're a legend. 
What I would ideally want is a 7-part cyclic composition with similar 
methods to the above but which has more of the (preferably all of the) 96 
4-bell runs (ie 24* XXXX5678, xxxx8765, 5678xxxx, 8765xxxx).  That would 
just be nirvana.