[r-t] FCH

[Ted Steele]

Robin Woolley wrote:
> Many of you are missing Alex Tatlow's point!
>
> He wants to know *how to do it by hand* - not have a set of programs 
> which
> will do it for him. This latter is called 'dumbing down'.
>
> As Don Morrison finally said: "That said, I strongly urge working out at
> least one or two examples yourself, by hand, at least for tenors 
> together,
> in course. You'll learn a lot more than by just looking at whatever a
> machine spits out." 

Which brings us back to Wilson's book "The Art and Science of Change 
Ringing". Even with its acknowledged limitations in this area I found it 
good for the basic means of both extracting FCHs and understanding why 
they exist. With this I was able to apply the approach to any other 
method, which is perhaps the main benefit. I found both the Blue Line 
method and the more difficult Symbolic Approach to Extracting FCHs" much 
less clear.  I was out of ringing for 25 years and never pursued 
composing but the fact that I can still recall what I learnt from Wilson 
must be some testimony to its value as a basic tool. The difficulty I 
had was how to apply the information in practice in a way that was not 
overly cumbersome, but that I suppose is the art of composition. I have 
never seen Leary's work but a standard work on the subject would 
certainly be a great benefit to the exercise.

Ted