[r-t] PB7 Calling Positions

[edward martin]

On 8/2/06, Robin Woolley <robin at robinw.org.uk> wrote:
> I imagine that this arose because it was usual at one time to use 'natural
> course ends' for composition purposes, and it is interesting to note that
> 'coursing order' is not mentioned until page 109 of 'Ropesight'. This is
> after the section on Plain Bob Major.
>
> I read somewhere that 'Ropesight', when published, was describing a
> compartively new system. After all, we were all told not to ring by numbers
> when learning, weren't we? Later, we're told to use the coursing order, and
> if that's not 'ring by numbers', I don't know what is.
>
> Best wishes,
> Robin.

 Hello
In my copy on page 60 to the absolute learner Snowdon speaks of using
'course bell' and 'after bell' obviously the more expereienced ringers
& conducters would have been a mite thick not to have realised that if
one bell is between two others in a coursing order then so too was
every other bell. Thus in a course there was a distinctive coursing
order which certainly in Plain Bob & Double Norwich, could be put to
good use.

Actually, on page 86, speaking of the coursing order of 6-7-5 in the
plain course of Bob Triples, Snowdon notes that a bob at M (ie what I
would refer to as W) and call the 7th in, produces the Tittums
coursing order 5-6-7; he also notes "when the bells hunt down in the
coursing order 7 6 5 the position is known as the reverse tittums". As
I pointed out earlier, he gives us the reason for why bobs on 235 are
called Middle and on 246 are called Wrong - it's the positioning of
the 7th at these particular lead ends

Coursing orders had been utilised by composers dating back at least to
Annables, and in Snowdon's chapter 'On conducting and calling round'
(page 108) he actually reccommends that conductors should not pin all
on hearing the correct row being tapped out at a particular lead end,
but rather: "It is therefore, absolutely necessary that a conductor
should be able to make sure in some  very simple manner whether the
ringing is progressing correctly. This can be done very easily by the
observation of the order in which the bells are coursing one another,
and by observing whether this order is such as will bring them into
their correct places at certain known lead-ends" which brings us to
the very good point that you made. Apparently composers were used to
working in 'natural course ends' rather than in coursing orders. Thus
a bob at w in Major gives the natural course end 52436 and so on

Snowdon died January 1890 when comparatively speaking there was a very
small repertoire of methods being rung. I would suggest that in the
following decades composers utilised coursing orders rather than
Natural CEs
But we are still stuck with the tradition of naming calling positions
by the position of the tenor rather than by the effect on the coursing
order

mew