[r-t] Pitman's 13440 change compositions

Philip Earis pje24 at cantab.net
Wed Aug 9 07:32:16 UTC 2017


Following a recent conversation with Ian Fielding, I'm now very interested
to learn more about Albert Pitman's tenors-together extent compositions of
spliced major (13440 changes, ie 8!/3).

Pitman's impressively detailed wikipedia page
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_J_Pitman) says:

"His major achievement in 1961 was the publication of two compositions,
numbers 1 and 2 of 13440 Spliced Surprise Major in six methods"

A search on Pealbase suggests there hasn't been a long length of 13440
rung since its records start  (in 1950), so I presume Pitman's
compositions remain unrung?

Moreover, I can't seem to find either of these compositions on either
www.ringing.org/peals/ or complib.org (another example of how ringing can
be well-served with excellent resources but oddly some seminal
compositions are hard to find).

After a bit of a search, I've found one of the compositions on Roddy
Horton's website (www.rrhorton.net):

===
13440 Spliced Surprise Major (6 Methods)
Albert J Pitman 1961 p287
 23456    M  W  H   Methods
-----------------------------------
 43526       2  -   RWMEMW/BW/R/
 54326          -   LEMWR/
 35426          -   RWMEL/
 36524    2     -   R/WB/WMEL/
 45623    -     -   R/WMEL/
 62453       -  -   LEMW/R/
 46253          -   RWMEL/
 24653       3  -   RWMEMW/BW/BW/R/
 64523       2  -   RWMEMW/BW/R/
 56423          -   RWMEL/
 52364    2  -  -   R/WB/WMEMW/R/
 35264          -   RWMEL/
 23564       3  -   RWMEMW/BW/BW/R/
 53624       2  -   RWMEMW/BW/R/
 46325    -     -   R/WMEL/
 24365       -      LEMW/R
 34625       2  -   RWMEMW/BW/R/
 63425          -   RWMEMWR/
 65324    2     -   R/WB/WMEL/
 42356    -  -  -   R/WMEMW/R/
-----------------------------------
3 part.
3840 Watford, 2784 Wembley(M), Rutland,
1920 Ealing, 1056 Belgrave, Belvedere(L).
381 com, 144 cru's.
===

So my questions now are:

1) Can anyone send the other of the two compositions?

2) Are both compositions definitely unrung? Were they ever attempted?

3) Has there ever been a tenors-together extent of major rung?

4) Can someone provide a simple explanation as to how these Pitman
compositions fit together?  Has anything been written in the RW on these?

5) How much scope is there to use the same plan but with a different
selection of methods?









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