[r-t] Peal lengths [was Anything Goes vs Peals Mean Something]

[Ian Partridge]

On Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 9:52 PM, Mark Davies <mark at snowtiger.net> wrote:
> What I am trying to say is that the decision to adopt 5000 and above for
> Major, and stick with 5040 for Triples and below, has an elegance and a
> rightness to it. Bringing everything down to 5000 is just too reductionist,
> and would lose our beloved factorial, rightly respected through the ages.
>
> Does no-one other than me see the beauty of this two-length system?

I don't think it's beautiful at all, but I think it's important that
we keep it. Any proposals which allow peals of triples < 5040 rows
will be rightly ridiculed. I do think that peals of triples >5040
should be allowed though, where they consist of each row being rung
either N or N+1 times. The extent(s) shouldn't have to be round
blocks.

For major and above, the extent isn't an issue, and 5000 is as good a
number as any, and is what we have standardised on historically.
Increasing this number to 5040 will make a lot of people who've rung
peals of >=5000 and <5040 very angry, because those peals will be
"banned". We also have to consider the huge number of compositions
that would be chucked out.

-- 
Ian Partridge

City of Southampton Orchestra - http://www.csorchestra.org