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

[Ian McCulloch]

On Thu, 3 Dec 2015, John Harrison wrote:

> In article <A2AF536A8BAD407B84D9AC03D30586BC at Modak>,
>   Philip Earis <pje24 at cantab.net> wrote:
>
>> 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 ...
>
> Is science a valid analogy?  There the papers are published after the
> experiment has been conducted and the results obtained?

Often there is a theory paper published that proposes some experiment, and 
then some other research group actually carries it out.  But This 
generally implies a split - the theory paper is published mainly because 
the thereticians can't do the experiment themselves.  There is a strong 
analogy to bellringing here; not all composers are members of a strong 
ringing band, or even want (or are able) to ring their own compositions, 
and that isn't a hinderance.

I guess the reluctance to publish in bellringing is that the notion of 
priority isn't part of the CC decisions - publishing means that the 
composition is out there for anyone to ring it, or grab a few of the new 
methods and ring them separately (and perhaps give them different 
names?!).  Similar things happen in science all the time, but names and 
conventions aren't set in stone so it ususally sorts itself out in the 
end.

Cheers,
Ian