[r-t] Method difficulty

[King, Peter R]

Can anyone think of an objective measure for method difficulty? I know
it is a highly subjective issue, rather like music, but, like it or not,
there are measures there (like crus, or little bell roll ups or counts
of other preferred combinations). Are there sensible equivalents for
difficulty. What I mean is difficulty in learning and ringing (rather
than conducting or composing). I sort of have in mind that there must be
some measure of the number of bits of information you need to store to
ring the method. So plain bob you only have to remember to dodge when
the treble leads. Whole chunks fo Cambridge can be condensed by learnign
"places in 56" (or wherever), or front work. However, large amounts of
Belfast it seems you have to learn explicitly almost on a blow by blow
basis. So Belfast is harder than Cambridge is harder than plain, seems
reasonable. However, is this simply because we tend to ring lots of
cambridge type methods with the same kind of work repeated and if we
rang more Belfast type methods we would get used to those bits of work.
Or is there something intrinsic to certain types of ork making them
harder to lump together.

I suppose if you ring strictly by place notation then the amount of
information required to be remembered is identical for same length
leads. But I don't think many would dispute teh ordering
Belfast>Cambridge>Plain Bob, in which case it should be possible to
quantify.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Peter

(ps I am not particularly interested in helpful advice on how to learn
or ring Belfast more efficiently!)