[r-t] New Surprise Minor Composition

[John Warboys]

Great work Ander, I'm intrigued by the mix of in-course and out-of-course leads for each backwork as that's something I don't think has been done in any previous compositions.

A question for those with a greater understanding than me of the Framework for method ringing, does it now allow you to have calls that shorten the lead of a method?  If that's the case then the short lead could potentially be classified as a "shortened" lead of Wooler rather than a new little method.

John

----Original Message-----
From: ringing-theory [mailto:ringing-theory-bounces at bellringers.org] On Behalf Of Alexander Holroyd
Sent: 06 March 2021 15:54
To: ringing-theory at bellringers.org
Subject: [r-t] New Surprise Minor Composition

The holy grail of Standard 41 Surprise Major would be an all-the-work "normal length" peal composition of 5040.  So far as I know, no-one has any idea whether this is possible.  The required 41*5 leads for the all-the-work property is just 5 leads short of 5040, so the problem seems very difficult because there is so little "slack".  I believe I have shown through exhaustive search that is is not possible in a 5-part structure, but that is just a flea-bite of the full search space, and it's not clear what to try next.

A few years ago I started considering whether it might be possible to get a 5-part 5040 consisting of 5 leads of each of the 41 methods, plus one additional method to mop up the remaining 120 rows.  I eventually managed to come up with quite a few solutions for the 41 methods, but infuriatingly, in every case it was not possible to join the remaining rows into a method or methods without jump changes (or without splicing in and out of the 41 somewhere other than the lead end, which would defeat the purpose).  This search was not exhaustive, but I was out of options.

One could simply leave out the missing 120 rows to get a 4920 of 41 atw, and with the right choice of solution, each row then appears either 6 or
7 times.  However, I'm not sure how much appetite there would be for ringing that!  As a final fall-back, I looked for ways to bump the length up to a sub-5040 peal length by ringing some but not all of the missing rows.  It turns out that there is a very nice way to do this, in a minimum length of 5000, with the extra method being a perfectly nice symmetric regular method (seemingly the first Little Surpise Minor method rung).  My understanding is that these days such a composition counts as a perfectly legitimate peal. (Needless to say, I would rather ring a 5040, but I don't know how to get one!)

The above process led to a collection of leads of the methods. Joining them into a peal was also quite challenging.  Methods having 2nds and 6ths place variants must have both versions, and so cannot have calls (otherwise one cannot really legitimately claim to have rung both methods).  On the other hand, a lead can be rung in either direction.

I tried to optimize for ease of ringing.  There are still quite a few changes of overwork.  A possible variant would be to ring a whole plain course of Cheeky Little at the beginning (or end). Harder arrangements are possible too.

Many thanks to my new and old Bristol friends for ringing it so seemingly effortlessly today!

enjoy, Ander

https://complib.org/composition/77205

5000 42-Spliced Surprise Minor
Alexander E Holroyd
23456    1    2    3    4    5    Methods
24635        s    –            CyCu;No.
62543                        MuHeWhBk
56243            –            PrCmLi.
43625                        AbLfBmRoNe
45362    –            s        Ke.IpAkWk;
45236            –            StAdCh.Wm
24653                        ClCtSaMoWoNb
36524    –            –        Ws.HuLoCo.
45362                    –    BoYoBvSuDu.
42635    –                    We.BcNfNw
5 part.

Contains 120 Allendale (Ad), Alnwick (Ak), Annable's London (Ab), Bacup (Bc), Bamborough (Bm), Berwick (Bk), Beverley (Bv), Bourne, Cambridge (Cm), Canterbury (Ct), Carlisle (Cl), Chester, Coldstream, Cunecastre, Durham, Hexham, Hull, Ipswich, Kelso, Lightfoot (Lf), Lincoln, London, Morpeth, Munden, Netherseale, Newcastle (Nw), Norfolk (Nf), Northumberland (Nb), Norwich, Primrose, Rossendale, Sandiacre, Stamford, Surfleet, Warkworth (Wk), Wearmouth (Wm), Wells, Westminster (Ws), Whitley, Wooler, York; 80 Cheeky Little (Cy); 209 com; atw, including plain leads of all methods having 2nd and 6th place variants.  Each row occurs 6 or 7 times.

Cheeky Little Surprise Minor:  &34-3.4-2-34,1

Bristol Society
Ringing Room, UK
Saturday, 6 March 2021 in 2h 17

5000 Spliced Surprise Minor (42m)
Composed by A E Holroyd
1–2 Julian O Howes
3 Lucy A Warren (C)
4 Philip J Earis
5 Alexander E Holroyd
6 Alan G Reading

This composition, containing the standard 41 surprise minor all the work, is rung for the first time.

https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1423167


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