The History of Change Ringing

"There are four ways to ring a bell: hit it on the outside; push the bell so the bell moves but the clapper doesn't; pull the clapper but not the bell; then there's our way. Our way is the most effective, because the instant at which the bell strikes can be very carefully timed. The sound projects out. A bell is shaped like a trumpet, and this way the sound projects out."
-- a change ringer

The early bells were rung by a number of men pulling on a lever. The three ton bell at Canterbury needed about twenty men; they would all strain and pull and raise it a little, and then let go. The bell would swing back, the clapper would hit and strike a note. For greater control, a wooden half circle with a rope was attached to the head stock. The pull of the rope turned the half wheel, and the bell swung with the half wheel. Control was minimal, but the bells could be rung in order. The first notes would be separated; then the sounds would jangle as the bells swung back and forth.

The definitive change that allowed real control occurred when a full wheel was attached to the headstock. Then if the bell is mouth up when the rope is pulled, the bell will fall and swing through a full 360 degrees and can come precisely to balance every time. The clapper will fall in different timing than the bell. As the bell rises on the other side, the clapper hits the bell edge. Thus a single note sounds. This is the present method of bellringing.

A swinging bell has properties in common with a pendulum. The timing cannot be easily changed. You cannot make a pendulum of fixed length swing faster without some forcing. Since each bell rings at a fixed rhythm which cannot be easily altered, tunes cannot be rung easily. However, eight bells (or six or ten or twelve) on the tonic scale can be pulled off one after another, to sound the eight notes on the descending scale, and then the first and following bells may be swung back in the other direction to sound like a sequence of eight notes. Thus the descending succession 12345678 -- called rounds -- can be repeated over and over at a fixed rhythm. This repeating sequence, a lovely cascading sound, accompanies English brides and grooms down the aisle after their vows.

But even this dulls with repetition. Once a ringer has learned to handle a rope well -- a process of several months -- she can pull the rope so that the bell swings through 360 degrees and balances mouth up. The ringer whose bell follows immediately after can give the bell a lighter pull so that it doesn't quite reach the balance point, and therefore rings sooner on the return or back stroke. In this way two bells can change places in the tone row (or change). In particular, if the person ringing the number one or treble bell (lightest and highest pitch) could attain the balance position and hold it while the number two bell is pulled down ahead of it, then bells one and two would have changed position. If each adjacent pair of bells changed places then the sequence 12345678 would be followed by 21436587.

It is not practical for a bell to move more than one position at a time. Balancing a bell is always tentative, and if the ringer moving ahead stopped the bell too far below the balance point, the bell would not rise sufficiently on the other side. Or if the bell is pulled too hard -- in order to get it mouth upwards again -- the bell might swing over the balance point, and the bell would bounce off the stay and come down too soon. Bashing the stay is very bad form. The presence of a non-broken stay on the bell prevents a ringer from accidentally being pulled up to the ceiling!

Rules for Ringing Methods

1. Each composition begins and ends in rounds.
2. Each bell sounds exactly once in each tone row or change.
3. A bell can move only one position at a time.
4. No change is repeated within a method.

In order to learn a method, a ringer learns the blue line, that is, the outline of the path of the bell. Ringers rely on the symmetry of the pattern to memorize it; they have no music in front of them when they ring. With the exception of the treble, each bell follows the same path, albeit beginning in a different place. The treble "hunts", that is, traverses a path from front to back and front again four times.

Twenty-four changes has Plain Bob Minimus, and twenty-four changes are all the permutations possible on four bells. It takes less than a minute to ring. If you add a bell, you have Plain Bob Doubles: 120 different permutations are possible on five bells.

Each new bell brought into the pattern multiplies the number of changes which can be rung without repetition. Six bells offer 720 changes; seven: 5040, and a peal. A peal entails five thousand or more changes without break, without irretrievable errors, and (when seven or more bells are being rung), without repetition. It takes six or more people working together coordinating hand and eye, minding permutations and bells for three hours or more.

"What a ringer needs most is not strength but the ability to keep time. Everybody must be dead on with their pulls. Nobody may be uneven. You must bring these two together in your mind, and let them rest there forever -- bells and time, bells and time."
-- Robert Palgrave, an English tower captain

Ringing in New England and the North American Guild

The oldest bells in North America are at The Old North Church, in Boston. They were hung in 1745. In the ringing room today hangs a copy of a 1750 charter in which the guild of ringers agreed upon a democratic organization of the tower. Paul Revere's is the second signature on that contract. Perhaps his association with ringing is the reason he had a key to the tower that fateful night ...

In England most bell towers are associated with a church. In Boston, the active ringing towers are at Christ Church (Old North) and the Church of the Advent. Experienced ringers are encouraged to help out with the service ringing. However the other ringing towers in New England are not associated with churches. There is a ring of ten at the Kent School in Connecticut and ten at the Groton School, northwest of Boston. Hingham also has a ring of ten. Smith College, in Northampton, has a ring of eight bells. A peal of eight -- originally destined for the Boston Customs House Tower -- now hangs at Perkins Institute for the Blind in Watertown , but is not currently a functional ringing tower.