[r-t] 1-part tenors together atw compositions of 23-splicedmajor

[Philip Earis]

"Oh dear, this has rather let the cat out of the bag"

Many apologies for inadvertently outing you here, MBD.  Having seen the link 
(an open website) and also the "(C) MBD 2014" at the bottom of the page I'd 
assumed that this was both public and not brand new. Indeed, given I'm a bit 
out of the loop I thought it was conceivable the composition might have been 
discussed before (see my original comments).  Oops. I don't think you need 
have any concerns that a band will spontaneously get together and ring a 
surprise first peal of this in the coming days, though :-)

On the more general point, I must admit I'm a bit puzzled by the attitude to 
keep compositions secret until they've been pealed. Timely publishing is 
beneficial to a field - this is certainly the case in science, where 
publishing is very well established, and I feel applies equally to ringing.

Publishing something establishes priority, for sure. It also makes it less 
likely that new method names, compositions etc will be duplicated / pinched 
(inadvertently or otherwise), and provides an opportunity for redress if 
this happens. Moreover publishing can inspire interest in both the specific 
composition and more general area.  And my making development thoughts etc 
known earlier in the stage, it can help overcome hurdles and suggest ways 
forwards (eg here where MBD was unaware of Colin Wyld's work from 35 years 
ago), analogous to open peer review.


"In correspondence with Graham John (who has also done much pioneering work 
in this area) I have determined that there are other types of ATW set which 
might, in theory, be linked into a peal. Some of these may allow callings 
which do not require whole courses, and this would open up the possibility 
of mixed 2nds and 8ths place methods. I have not yet summoned the energy to 
pursue this avenue very far"

It would be great to see where this leads. Please keep the list informed.


"Don is correct that the existing composition is "every lead different". In 
fact this was one of the pruning criteria I used, allowing me to reject 
search branches without that property. One astonishing thing about the 
method-population part of the project was that I started off despairing that 
there were any methods at all that would fit the composition, and ended up 
with the understanding that the best way to find solutions was to make 
almost unrealistic quality demands for the method properties. Such is the 
power of pruning..."

Indeed.  Did you do any pruning to try to flush out (relatively common) run 
methods? Or was the design intention to have essentially all new methods? At 
a very quick scan through the place notations it looks like Ungoliant is 
Ashtead over the treble, but other than that there don't seem to be big 
chunks of familiar motifs...did you try restricting the search-space by 
looking for eg Bristol over methods, Cambridge over methods, double methods 
etc?