Bellringing
The age old art of ringing chruch bells
Bellringing the basics
A introduction to bellringing
Bells & Weights
Church bells are pretty substantial chunks of metal. St Luke's, Leicester where I ring, it has 8 bells - the Treble (Number 1), the lightest bell with the highest note, weighs over 4 cwt = 32 stone, and the Tenor (Number 8), the heaviest with the lowest note, weighs over 12 cwt = 96 stone. This is actually quite light compared with some churches for example the tenor at Leicester Cathedral weighs in at about 25 cwt = 200 stone, and St Margrets Leicester weighs in at about 32 cwt = 256 stone! but the hevyest ring of bells is at Liverpool Cathedral the tenor is 82 cwt = 656 stone
How Bells Move
Bells are rung in England by swinging them from the very top of their stroke with the bell upside down and up in the air, through a full circle until they are again upside down in the opposite direction (Over 360 Degrees), and then back again. The bells can be stopped at the top (Set) by taking them just beyond top dead centre (The Balance) where they then rest on a stop. This stop, known as the slider, is movable to allow this to happen in either direction - it can be seen in the diagrams, just below the wheel. It is this part of the cycle, where the bell is hardly moving and can even be stopped, which allows the ringing to be controlled.
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Top - bell down, no ringing |
Change Ringing is a way of ringing bells that produces a rich cascade of sound and most stone built churches in
Change ringing bells are rung from the mouth up position. When the rope is pulled, the bell falls, then rises again to the mouth up position. When the bell reaches that point, the ringer can pull it at the same interval as previously, allow the bell to rest there momentarily, or they can pull it slightly before it reaches the balance. These subtle controls are the essence of change ringing and what allow the bells to change positions.
Change ringing is to ring a method, not a tune, some methods can be a bit musical and sound nice when some just sound strange, for example the most simple method is to go up the scale, say 12345678 called rounds, and call the changes called call changes, e.g. the bells ring 12345678 and the conductor will call 4 to 2 and the next hand stroke the bells will ring 12435678 the 3 and 4 swapped over, this can be done with any 2 bells that are together.
More the next step after that is to learn plain hunt where everyone knows the order which they will do, so no conductor is needed other than to say go and stop and to put people right that go wrong. The bells all hunt out to the back and back in again till they get back to rounds.
Look to trebles going, shes gone.
12345678
12345678
12345678
Go Plain Hunt
12345678
21436587
24163857
42618375
46281735
64827153
68472513
86745231
87654321 – Halfway, Reverse Rounds
78563412
75836142
57381624
53718264
35172846
31527486
13254768
12345678
That’s all
12345678
12345678
Stand
Did you know? There are more bells hung for full circle ringing in Leicestershire, than anywhere outside of
Bell Down (Safe) Bell Up (Dangerous)
Down Set Up Set
Complicated Stuff - The Theory - How To Ring/Control A Bell
The bellringer makes the bell do what they want by making small adjustments as it 
approaches and then moves away from the top of the stroke. The bit in between is done by gravity and during this the bellringer, though he uses the rope to feel what the bell is doing as much as he can, makes sure that he does not get involved while the rope speeds past his nose with a large amount of energy attached to it up above.
When not being rung the bells are left down (for safety reasons) so the first thing to
be done
before a session of ringing is to get them up. This involves gradually swinging them more and more and more until they are fully up, quite hard work on the larger bells - the
needs two men working flat out for several minutes to get it up. At the end of the session they have to be brought down, again a gradual process.
Did you know? The biggest bell in
Timing
One of the many questions I have been asked is timing, how do you know when to pull? Or how hard? Or how little?
Well when you ring you get a feeling for the pace, all the bells will ring at a steady pace and it’s your job as a ringer to ring at the same pace as the others. Regarding when to pull and how hard depends on you, the bell and what you are ringing, if the bell is small say about 3cwt, you only pull a bit at hand-stroke, if the bell is huge say about 37cwt, you pull long pulls both strokes, if you are going down to lead (ringing quicker) you pull less, but if you are going up to the back (ringing slower) you pull more. Also things like how the bell is hung come in to play, say if its on plain bearings, it is naturally harder to ring.
But the main feeling of the pulling quantities comes with practice, also the pulling ‘quantity’ is also in strict correlation with your pulling ‘quality’, for example if you catch the sally too low you haven’t go so much time to pull it so you are snatching allot and the bell starts to drop, but if you catch the sally too high you are strangling the bell and stopping it from going up so comes back even quicker so you have to pull harder.
The Bells
A bell it's self is cast from molten bellmetal, a bronze alloy consisting of 77% copper and 23% tin. The bell is tuned so it sounds nice, so it’s not only in tune with itself but the other bells in the ring. It’s attached to a headstock, hung in a frame at the top of the tower. Bolted to one side of each headstock there is a wheel made of wood to which the bell ropes are attached. Each bell is mounted on bearings, and by pulling the rope the bell swings back and forth. As momentum builds up the bell eventually travels virtually a full circle. The skill then is to keep it swinging and make sure it strikes in time with every other bell.
www.taylorbells.co.uk/pages/towerbells/index.html
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The simplest form of ringing is when the bell sounds from the highest note to the lowest and this is known as rounds. This ordered style of ringing is something that has developed in Britain and occurs only where the British settled in other parts of the world. Many people plan holidays based around the locations of these distant towers |
The bells you can have any number of bells but the more they are the harder the tunes (methods) get to ring. Methods are the order the bells ring in. every set of bells is called a ring of bells, and usually the ring consists of a even number of bells because most methods are rang on a even number of bells, and some times have a odd number if they don’t have a bell keeping the pace (the tenor), each tower has a set of bells in a musical key, like E or F# and every bell in the tower is a different note, the highest note being the smallest bell and the lowest being the biggest (normally). The methods consist of the order you ring the bells in.
Ringing sequences
The most basic sequence is to ring rounds - down the scale 1 2 3 4 5 then repeat.
This soon gets boring so the order might then be altered by two bells changing places. For example, 2 and 3 might swap making the order 1 3 2 4 5 . To do this no 3 must ring fast and no 2 slowly for one stroke. The bells never move by more than one position at a time as it would be impossible, due to its momentum, for the bell that needs to speed up to go fast enough.
The ringers all need to know what is happening and what is about to happen. There are two ways of achieving this: “call changing” and “method ringing”. The first involves someone conducting the proceedings by calling out blow-by-blow instructions. The second requires all the ringers to know a set of rules which defines the sequence to be followed. The simplest of these, known as “plain hunting”, involves odd numbered bells moving one step at a time out to the back (position 6 if 6 bells are involved) and then turning round and moving to the front (position 1), then turn again, etc. The even numbered bells do the same thing but start by moving towards the front, so each bell meets (ie rings next to) every other bell at some point in the cycle.
Did you know? That it used to take four people with a rope each, to swing great Paul (the biggest bell in Britian) just to get it to chime.
In this animation whats wrong?
Answer is at the bottom of the page.
Bell handling
This takes quite a long time to learn but once you can do it, like riding a bike, you will never lose it. It is quite hair-raising to start with - you can’t practice in slow motion, the bell is either going or it isn’t. There will always be an experienced ringer standing with a learner ready to take over if any help is needed, and this is bound to happen in the early stages.
Ringing skills
A major aim in bellringing is to achieve “good striking” which means everyone getting their bell to ring at exactly the right moment so that the sound is even with no clashes and no large gaps - and when it’s done well
it sounds very good. It is made tricky by the fact that on each stroke the bell doesn’t ring when you pull on the rope but about three quarters of the way through the swing, not long before you pull for the next stroke. The exact place will vary from bell to bell and also on the hand- and back-stroke for each bell. You need to be able to spot where your bell is sounding amongst all the others - having a good sense of musical pitch will help but is not essential as there are other ways of doing it - and then adjust your pull as necessary. So the first need is to listen to the bells. This may seem obvious but many people don’t do it.
The second thing that is important is to have a good sense of rhythm. If the bell you are following goes wrong it is much better if you can ignore it and rely on your own sense of rhythm to keep going at the right speed.
Third is the idea of “rope-sight” which involves spotting the sequence of ringing by being aware of which rope is just ahead of yours and which is just in front of that etc. It is quite helpful to see as well as hear what is happening but it is a mistake to rely on it too much. If you rely on it totally, ie if you only remember who you should be following and not your position and which way you are going, then there is the obvious danger that if that bell goes wrong then you will become completely lost.
Did you know? That the biggest man rung bell is in Liverpool Cathedral (4 tones).
If you have any questions or you just want info contact me on: alex_jason_skerritt@hotmail.com
Answer: The clapper inside is not moving!
And if that was to happen when ringing, its said to have been rung up wrong!