Learning to Count Your Places

I attended Dilhorne's practice the other evening.  It was well attended and their band of ringers have learnt to handle their bells well. They are starting to progress to Plain Hunting and so we started discussing 'counting your places' what is it? and why is so important?

Counting your places tells you where you are in the sequence of the bells.  For example if I am ringing on the bell 3 in rounds I am said to be in 3rd's Place

1 2 3 4 5 6 (I'm in 3rd's place)

If a conductor calls a change 2 to 3, this means Bell 2 follows Bell 3, so the change is now

1 3 2 4 5 6 (I'm still on bell 3 but now I'm in 2nd's place)

I need to listen and count 1 2 3 4 5 6 (i'm emphasizing the 2nd ring as that's me! on bell 3)

So what has this told me?

I was in 3rd's Place but have moved down to 2nd's Place - Going down I need to pull in (be fast), I need to do this even before I think about who I am following, pulling my bell in will keep the correct rhythm of the ringing.

There are 3 speeds in ringing

1. Fast - Going 'down' the order

2. Slow - Going 'up' the order

3. Steady - Staying where you are in the order

These 3 speeds are used in all methods, there are no other speeds, even in the most complex of methods such as Bristol Maximus uses these 3 speeds.

If you start thinking about your places in call changes, the leap to method ringing will become easier.

Bell Ringing Sequences

I have just been on the telephone talking 'education' to one of our members and she mentioned no one had taught her any other changes other than rounds, so here are a few popular ones for 6 bells.

1 2 3 4 5 6 (Rounds)

1 3 5 2 4 6 (Queens)

5 3 1 2 4 6 (Kings) (also known as Whittington's)

1 4 2 5 3 6 (Tittums)

3 4 2 5 1 6 (Exploding Tittums)

5 4 3 2 1 6 (Reverse Rounds)

There are a few others, but these are the popular ones.  I am happy to discuss how to call the bells to these sequences.

However,  I quite often start my learners off by just 'pulling off' in one the different changes.  It gets the learner to starting thinking about following different bells, without the fear of worrying who they follow, and changing speed.