[r-t] Cambridge Blue Delight Major

[Don Morrison]

On 6/16/07, Richard Pullin <grandsirerich at googlemail.com> wrote:
> One of the most musical methods is Cambridge Blue Delight Major.

I'm curious why you assert this is "one of the most musical methods".
My understanding is that it was devised not for its musical
properties, but rather as one of only a handful of double methods with
no adjacent places in the plain course (treble single dodge treble
dodging, plain bob lead ends, no more than two consecutive blows in
the same place for any bell).

While I'm sure it can produce some entertaining music, and would be
fun to ring in other regards, it does not seem to me to be particular
conducive to the most commonly sought after musical properties. The
various rollup opportunities (both front and back, obviously, since
it's a double method) are different from one another, so to get many
of any particular kind of rollup you'll need lots of different
courses. When the treble is in 3-4 or 5-6 it's not a coursing
four-some at the other end, which tends to reduce the ease of getting
the usually desired sorts of musical rows. And it doesn't keep a
coursing pair in 7-8, which some folks consider desirable. While
unusual methods can often be particularly entertaining musically if
paired with an especially clever composition, since familiar rollups
may come in unexpected places and widely distributed, I suspect
Cambridge Blue's EL summary falseness and j lead end are not big helps
in producing such compositions, though perhaps something clever can be
done by using lots of out of course bits or something?

But the musicality of a method is strongly subjective, so I'm curious:
in what ways are you thinking it is particularly musical, rather than
simply structurally elegant?




-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>, <dfm2 at cmu.edu>
"Stop: Drive Sideways"                              -- a road detour sign