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

[Mark Davies]

In terms of secrecy of the project, obviously there is a certain 
stubbornness on my part to be first to the solution, but also I wanted 
the composition to be rung, not least to fix the method names, and the 
best way of doing this seemed to be to line up a band who would be 
promised first dibs at it.

But it doesn't really matter, and perhaps I ought to do it differently 
next time (if there is a next time - compositionally exhausted at the 
moment!).

Philip asks further questions about the methods. Yes, one of the pruning 
criteria was to exclude any rung library method (other than Lessness, 
which I eventually fixed into place). Doing this allowed me to establish 
the "Mythical Beasts" theme. Other than that, the methods were not 
designed to avoid similarities to rung methods, except insofar as I 
placed a pruning premium on different types of start and variety of line 
which, together with the cross-falseness of the calling, tended to bring 
in more unusual stuff. (Despite this, I had thought that one of my 
methods was a 2nd's place version of a rung 8th's place method, but 
perhaps that was a previous iteration.)

I certainly didn't try to restrict the search space to methods of any 
particular type: on the contrary, I was looking for as much variety as 
possible. This was partly as a reaction to the horrors of the very first 
solutions I found, which were all TVs of things like Cray. I didn't want 
that.

When I get a chance I will summarise the latest position of my research. 
I am sure there is scope for even better one-part 23-spliced peals, but 
I am hoping that this one will put down a marker and become widely rung. 
One interesting thing will be how hard the band finds it to ring in 
January. Of course, even if it is very hard indeed, that may inspire people!

MBD