[r-t] New Grandsire [was Old methods]

[Simon Humphrey]

> Philip Earis:
>  To give a couple
> of examples about the power of liberalising decisions, I would say two of
> the biggest areas where ringing has seen growth and innovation in the past
> 50 years are in compositions of surprise major (and above) being more
> musical, and in spliced minor. Now interesting both of these had
> previously been held up I think by former miserable decisions - I believe
> you weren't
> allowed to have singles in surprise methods until (I think) the 1960s,

I don't recall there being any CC decision prohibiting singles in Surprise
methods in the 1960's.  It was just convention not to use them.  
It was in the 60's that the worth of a composition came to be measured,
regrettably I think now, by the number of combination roll-ups it contained.
For many methods, singles enabled a big increase in cru's to be obtained,
and consequently the use of singles in surprise became acceptable and
eventually normal.
Incidentally, what was the first surprise composition to contain a single?
Was it Brian Price's 5090 of Cambridge?

> whilst multi-extent blocks of minor (with a couple of exceptions) were not
> allowed until more recently.  When the decisions were removed, people
> really started innovating, with great effect.

I agree about the multi-extent blocks in minor.  

SH