[r-t] Re: Method difficulty

[alan.andrews at breathe.com]

I would suspect that it would be very difficult to combine a subjective and 
an explicit difficulty rating. Method Master has a difficulty index for the 
methods that it calculates - it would be interesting to know how it does 
this and the variables it uses? 

Cheers,
Alan 

King, Peter R writes: 

> 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!)  
> 
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