[r-t] A date to pencil into your calendar

[Tim Barnes]

On Sep 3, 2015 2:55 AM, "Richard Johnston" <johnstonrh at amen.org.uk <mailto:johnstonrh at amen.org.uk> > wrote:
> This seems to me to be gratuitously complicated, and wrong in principle ... The method isn't any different from
> normal.  It is just rung in whole-pulls rather than half-pulls ... Any one ringing bob doubles in whole pulls will still think they are ringing Bob Doubles, just in whole pulls rather than whole pulls ... The sensible description is Plain Bob Doubles rung in whole pulls.

There are a few points to make on this:

 

First, it seems reasonable to report (say) a QP rung in whole pulls as (say) 1440 PB Minor with the inclusion of a footnote saying it used a single-extent composition that was rung in whole pulls.  It would be clear what was rung.

 

A benefit of instead naming a new ‘place’ minor method is that if someone later wants to do an analysis of how popular whole pull ringing is becoming, they can do a search for performances that use methods with an identity change every other row.  I.e. they can leverage existing ringing infrastructure.  It would be harder to do this analysis if information had to be gleaned from footnotes.

 

Also, reporting performances in ways that are different from how ringers think about what they're ringing is not uncommon.  E.g. TD Minor rung as overworks and underworks but reported as distinct methods, and Doubles rung as base methods plus a variety of calls but reported as variations.  I agree it’s generally preferable for performances to be described / reported in ways that correspond to how they’re rung, but I don’t see that this will be practical in all cases.

 

Finally, it would be possible to introduce a new class of ringing for performances rung in whole pulls.  At one level this could be as simple as adding a check box to Bell Board to identify such performances, and the check box could then be used for the analysis described above.  We had a similar discussion in the sub-group on whether a new class of composition should be introduced for when two or more methods (or more than one instance of a single method) are rung in a single row (e.g. Cambridge Minor over London Minor rung on 12-bells).  While still an open question in the sub-group, arguments have been made that it’s better to describe such a composition as a single Maximus method, as this similarly leverages existing ringing infrastructure, avoiding the need for re-programming of composition libraries, proving programs and music analyzers to handle this new composition class.  (Hence clause K.10.)  There’s a trade-off between adding new ringing classes so that description matches how something is rung, vs. the additional complexity that this brings.  For now it seems better to leverage existing ringing infrastructure in advocating for updated Decisions.  New classes can always be added down the road if new types of ringing become popular.

 

Tim

 

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