[r-t] Bristol Major Handbell Miracle

[Alexander E Holroyd]

Here is an explanation of a somewhat remarkable composition (or rather, several related variants) which I discovered recently.

It is a peal composition of Bristol S Major in which all three inside handbell pairs (34, 56, and 78) ring only the coursing position, together with one additional lead where they are place bells 3 and 4 (also an easy handbell lead), so only 8 possible leads for all three pairs.  This puts the method within reach of more handbell bands.  Moreover, the music is very decent.

I should add that the underlying ideas have undoubtedly been considered before, but to my knowledge this implication is new.

In the basic block, starting from the coursing order
56 87 43 2
we call the 2 to run in and run out 3 times, each time shunting it past a handbell pair, to give
56 87 2 43
56 2 87 43
and back to
2 56 87 43.
Note that all pairs remain coursing apart from the 3-4 lead between two bobs. This block in fact contains rounds, at the snap between the two bobs on 432, so this is where we start.  Since there are 6 leads between pairs of bobs, the length of this touch is 21 leads or 7 courses.  From the tenor's perspective:

672 Bristol Surprise Major
(42536) M            F              I               W
34526                                                  -
53642                  -              -
(42536) 2                                              -
Start at the backstroke snap.

If we call a single instead of a pair of consecutive bobs, the 2 makes 3rds, and the relevant pair are swapped over, e.g.
56 2 87 43
2 65 87 43.
Now we can consider swapping each of the pairs 34, 56, and 78 independently, to give 2*2*2=8 possible versions of the basic block.  Remarkably, these blocks are all true against each other, giving 24 courses.

In its basic form, the resulting composition is:

4928 Bristol Surprise Major
(4253678)            M            F              B             V             W                H
 34526                                                                                  -
6253748                             s                                                              s
6354728                                                             [2]
6354278                                             s
(4263578)            2                                                              -
4 part; Start at the backstroke snap.
Replace bracketed calls with sV in parts 2 and 4.

This has two obvious issues: it is too short, and it contains many 87s at backstroke.

To address the first issue, instead of joining two basic blocks by replacing -- with s, we can use s at one place and -s- at the other.  This joins the two blocks cleanly, rather than cutting out two leads.

For the second issue, we need to ring the blocks with 78 reversed backwards, which amounts to swapping the two pairs 34 and 56 with each other.  I was not able to find a good way to do this with normal calls: the obvious linkage involving two bobs is false (and would also introduce additional non-coursing leads for the handbell pairs).  Instead we can use a 145678 call in place of one bob of the F/I pair.  This is friendly for handbells - the 34 and 56 pairs both simply make places and turn around.

There are many ways to combine these elements to give a peal composition.  Music-wise, we can get all the 5678s, 8765s, 6578s, 3456s and 6543s at the back (and 16 each at the front) by ensuring that the repeating leads containing them are either left as --, or are joined with -s- and s rather than s and s (to get all 6 of the relevant leads).  Here are two possibilities:

5056 Bristol Surprise Major Op. handbell miracle no. 1 (simple calling)
Composed by Alexander E Holroyd
(42536) M            F              I               W
34526                                                  -
35462                  d             -
65423 s                                              [2]
64532                  d             -
(32546) s                                              -
4 part; d = 145678 Double; Start at the backstroke snap.
Replace bracketed calls with sW in parts 1 and 3.
76 crus (32f,44b), 38 5678s (16f,22b), 38 6578s (16f,22b), 196 4-bell runs (92f,104b), 576 5678 combinations (256f,320b), 34 8765s (16f,18b), Tittums, Reverse Waterfall, Waterfall.

5120 Bristol Surprise Major Op. handbell miracle no. 2 (music)
Composed by Alexander E Holroyd
(42536) M            F              I               W
34526                                                  -
35462                  d             -
65324 2                                              s
36452                  -              -
56324 2                                              s
53642                  d             -
43625 s                                              [-s-]
64532                  -              -
(32546) s                                              -
2 part; d = 145678 Double; Start at the backstroke snap.
Replace bracketed calls with sW in part 2.
80 crus (32f,48b), 40 5678s (16f,24b), 40 6578s (16f,24b), 216 4-bell runs (104f,112b), 640 5678 combinations (256f,384b), 40 8765s (16f,24b), Tittums, Reverse Waterfall, Waterfall.



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