This article is based on various different notes of advice previously given to particular people, so may be repetitive.

 

Ways of Learning and ringing - the importance of method structure.

 

Plain bob

When learners move on from ringing plain hunt to ring Plain Bob Doubles, they are usually taught to know where to make dodges 34 and seconds over the treble and long fifths at the back using a "circle of work", which for the 2nd bell means 34 down, long 5ths, 34up and 2nds.  If that is all the ringer knows, the chances are that they will make a lot of mistakes in deciding where and when to make those deviations from plain hunt.  That's because there is a lot to remember, and losing track of which is next, and the exact time to make them is not adequately defined. 

 

This can be improved if I know I pass the treble in such a position, then my next action is such and such.  That is better, but there is still a lot of scope for mistakes.

 

However, these exceptions from plain hunt all occur when the treble is leading., so if the ringer is aware of where that is, then if he is in 2nds place when the trebel leads he makes 2nds, in 3rd or 4th place he dodges, or if in 5ths makes an extra place beyond the one just made and thgen makes a further place and goes down.  Someone who rings like that is ringing by structure.  A big advantage is that the decision about what to do is made using current information, rather than by reference to old information, which may have been forgotten.

 

It is far easier to action an instruction "go along this road, and turn right at the Red Lion", than " Go along this road, pass the White Lion, and 750 yards further on turn right".

 

An experienced ringer uses a lot of different information to stay right, but the novice needs the simplest information when learning.

 

"Blue line"

 

For harder methods, the "circle of work" is then usually turned into the blue line pattern, and that then becomes the dominant way most medium standard (red zone) ringers (up to easy surprise royal) learn and ring methods.  It works well in many cases, but it does not encourage a developing understanding of how the different bells are interacting with each other.  They may develop the knowledge to know when they are passing or interacting with the treble, or with course and after bells, but that is often as far as it goes. 

 

Even for a method like Little Bob Royal or Kent Treble Bob Royal the blue line is not very helpful because all the work is so similar.  These methods are therefore best rung by "rules"  (which is a way of saying they are rung by structure).  The rules for both are quite simple, and both are related to where the ringer is right now.  In fact trying to ring Kent by blue line without knowing the rule if in 34 with the treble below you, do 34 places instead of a 34 dodge, will almost certainly lead to mistakes.

 

Most methods are "treble dominated", with the treble making a simple path compared with the other bells.  If the treble plain hunts then the other bells tend to also have plain hunting, with dodges and places as exceptions.  If the treble treble-bobs, then the default for other bells is treble bobbing, with missed dodges the exceptions.  This is important to know when learning, as you should note the omits, not the dodges.

 

The "starts" should also be learned, and each place bell learned as a separate unit.  You should also know what place bell follows the one you are currently ringing.  When ringing, lodge in your memory that I am "3rd place bell, next 4ths".  This a first step towards learning to recover from mistakes without help. 

 

If you also understand the structure, where you pass the treble and interact with course and after bells, self-correction becomes  relatively easy.  Without that knowledge it is almost impossible.

Everyone makes mistakes at first - but you don't have to!

 

Many mistakes are the result of losing concentration. 

 

Concentration has to be managed.  Once you have proved to yourself that you can recover from lost concentration, the next step is to learn how to run at reduced concentration without losing it entirely.

The best way of understanding the process is to compare it with alertly driving a car, by which I mean having sufficient focus to deal with whatever comes up before you, but not being full on.  Nor do you over-focus on individuals, either driving or when ringing, unless essential.   So when driving like that, the degree of concentration adjusts to the level of environmental threat.  On a clear road that means the concentration rises where there are junctions and turns down between them, but is still ready for the unexpected.  In ringing terms that means for something like plain bob being more alert at dodges, but being ready to become very vigilant if someone goes wrong.

The other thing that goes with this, is to ring methods mainly by rules that say if x happens then I do y, rather than I did z last time and after a lot of interval I do y.  You would not (usually) drive a car like that - "turn right at the Red Lion" is better than "after passing the White lion drive 750 yards and turn right"

More advanced methods

 

Learning methods by place bells is not just necessary for splicing, though it is necessary for that (and you *will* find yourself doing once you know a couple of methods even though you may not realise it, as you are about to break through the barrier where method learning and ringing suddenly gets much easier).

 

It is important to at least build the lead ends and place bells into what you learn for these reasons:

 

1) Unlearning is much harder than learning, so getting learning right to start with saves a lot of pain later.

 

2) at this ringing level the rest of the band will assume you know them, and if you go wrong they will give you correction information that assumes you know them - e.g. dodge with me and you are 3rds place bell.

 

3) you are much less likely to go wrong if you ring by place bells.  Why?  Because many of the easier treble dominated methods are variations on the work of the treble (i.e plain methods are variations on plain hunting, and surprise methods variations on treble bob hunting), a given place bell in the simpler methods normally consists of going up to the back once and down to the front once (or vice versa), and hence the special work of the method only appears once within a lead.  So you know if you have done it in this lead it will not happen again.  This reduces the risk of leaving bits of work out or repeating it. (Example using Yorkshire  below) 

 

There is something else, which you need to do to learn how best to make your mnemonics. And that is to look at the maximus version of any method you want to learn before you look at the major one, because the characteristic features show up in maximus in a way they don't at the bottom stage.  You want your rules to be future proof.

 

Yorkshire

 

Yorkshire is one of the easiest surprise method to learn and ring -  provided you learn it correct way.

 

Unwrapping the structure

 

In Yorkshire Maximus what do we find?

 

Get hold of the line *and grid*.  The Blueline app for android is quite useful for this

Why maximus?  It shows up the structure more easily.

Look at the grid and go to the bottom:

At the lead end all the bells are dodging in pairs except 12.

Before that they have all run through between the 3rd and last bells, both of which were still.

Before that all the bells above the 4th dodged   

These bells are just treble bobbing!

If you then look above you can see next the ones above 6th place dodged at the back.  

Now go to the half lead and there is a similar pattern of treble bobbing below 9/10.

So a lot of this method on higher numbers is just treble bobbing, and all the bits we have looked at  are all doing this in the standard coursing order, so easy to ring.

Now go to the top and pick out the path of the treble.

It dodges in 12 with the 2nds place bell, which then treble bobs under the treble's path up to 9/10  - it can't go higher straightway so does 3 dodges there then 2 at the back (because it can't get down faster) and then treble bobs for the rest of the lead.

Treble dodges in 34 with 4ths place bell which is completing 34 Yorkshire places in 34.

Treble dodges in 56  with bell (8) which is completing 56 Yorkshire places (YP)

and the same in 78 and 9/10.

These are all a common pattern

in 11/12 it dodges with the pivot bell 3.

Likewise on the way up it always had to pass a bell that hunted through and then did Yorkshire places, starting that YP under where the treble dodged next time.  I.e. 12 when treble in  34, 34 when treble in 56 etc.

So that is the other common pattern round the treble.  That swaps the coursing over and then swaps it back again.  

e.g.  8 makes 56 YP just after start of lead.  Bell 10 which was after bell to 8 runs through that YP (no dodge!) then 10 does YP in 34 and 8 runs through putting them, back in course again.  

similarly 12 does YP in 78 and 11 runs through, 10 does YP in 9/10 and 9 runs through

At the front it has to be slightly different.  The 6 still does YP in 12 but 4 does an abbreviated work to get back into course.

If you are 4, 8, 12 or 10 in the above the first dodge you did put you on a collision course with the treble so you had to make a place - that tells you when to make that YP  A USEFUL RULE

If you are 6,10,11,9 you found your course/after  bell there  and you can't dodge with it but run through and do a YP.  A USEFUL RULE

It is comparable in the second half of the lead.

The rule is still I can't dodge with course/after bell but must run through and do a YP, this time starting with a dodge with treble

But then is the harder one if I dodge and there is a bell doing YP place immediately above when I dodge I have to then to a YP, followed by a run through.

That's the rules bit.

Now look at the line

I described the work of 2nds place bell above.  You do not pass these bells in normal coursing order going up because they are in the swapped over state.

So for the 2nd instead of 4,6,8,0,T, E,9 7, 5 you get 6.4.0,8,E,T,7,5

Most people don't find finding these too difficult going up  Going down in 5ths place bell tends to be harder.  But the bell ring over (last) at handstoke in 9/10 you dodge with in 78, etc so that makes it easier not to get lost.

3rds place bell is just 3rds Cambridge minor with extra treble bob hunting - following coursing orders.

6th place bell front work is the same as Cambridge minor 2nds place bell, BUT DON'T think of it that way.  

You ran through 34 and did YP in 12.  Then led and did treble bobbing until you found course bell in 78 so do YP in 9/10.  

You always do dodges at back (and almost always at front). with course and after bell.

10ths place bell follows same rules but now the YP are in 34 and 78

11th place bell  YP in 56 and 56

7th place bell  YP in 78 and 34  The run through at 12 is a missed dodge in 12 so looks different but isn't really.

The rules are the easy ones for this half of the course - viz miss dodge with course bell then do YP

When you are learning higher numbers usually only half courses are rung, so at first pick 5 which then gets you the easier half.

Second half of course is harder because the run through bell is (obviously) after the YP, so you need more awareness of where the treble is.

4ths place bell  YP in 34 because treble is immediately below you as you complete the first dodge (which you would do any way), with run through after  That's fairly easy.

 

The next YP is in 78 with run through after. As you complete the first dodge, the treble is 3 above you.  That's as near as it ever gets in such circumstances, and with practice is easily identified.  Your "after bell" has been and still is 2 under you, and will pass through the YP you are about to make.

 

One ancillary way to remember this is that 34 + 78 =11/12  (all of these YP add to 11/12.  An alternative (NOT recommended) is to count the intermediate dodges 3 for max, 2 for royal 1 for major.

8ths place bell   YP in 56 because treble in the way after as before.  You can use the run about YP places being made above you for next YP in 56, or the summing rule.  

(There is another rule a bit harder to use, employing the number of dodges in 9/10 and 7/8 above the second run through (this is zero for 4ths place bell, 1 for 8ths place bell, and 2 for 12ths place bell).

etc.

Adapt this for 10 and 8 bells just by reducing the amount of treble bobbing padding!

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Another perspective - written to a different person:

a) Most of the work is treble bob hunting. Hence what you should learn is the exceptions from treble bob hunting - this is fundamentally different from plain bob (or other plain hunt based methods) where dodges are the exception and you learn where the dodges are

 

b) leaving aside 2nd/5ths place bell (which is almost all treble bobbing) and 3rds place bell (ditto, and even more so), the other place bells consist of mainly of treble bobbing which follows the coursing order (like Plain Bob) with 

     i) one Yorkshire places down plus (NB the Cambridge looking bit at front in 6th place bell includes a Yorkshire places)
     ii) one Yorkshire places up.  In each case that Yorkshire places is preceded by a missed dodge (when going in the direction 2, 6,10,11,7 - I will call this going
"forwards").  The dodge you did not make is where you pass your course bell, and you make the Yorkshire places around your course bell.  

(Note that you also meet course and after bells at the back and front, as you would expect if you were treble bob hunting).  So the missed dodge and Yorkshire places temporarily turns the 2 bells over in the coursing order, then turn them back.  Note too that this happens in ways that are always related to the treble.  

Going "forwards":

     on the down Yorkshire places(YP), you passed the treble when you missed the dodge, then did YP;

     on the up YP you missed the dodge with your course bell and then started the YP by dodging with the Treble.  

 

It is slightly harder going "backwards" (i.e 4ths place bell on),

     on going down you dodge until you make a blow over the treble after a dodge, and you must then make the places finishing with the dodge with the treble, and you omit the dodge with the after bell.  

     On going up, the corresponding place the treble is 3 above you.  That's as near as it ever gets in such circumstances, and with practice is easily identified.  Your "after bell" has been and still is 2 under you, and will pass through the YP you are about to make.  You make the YP and miss the next dodge as you go through the YP made by your after bell.

 

Additionally you can also be aware that you do 1,2 or 3 dodges between the down and up YP for major, royal, maximus, but I don't recommend this as a primary rule as it is easy to miscount, or have fallen asleep - and as explained at the start you want to use signs that cause you to act immediately.

 

2nds/5ths place bells pass the other bells with the normal coursing order swapped over in pairs (reflecting fact that the bells are passed in their swapped condition caused by the YPs). 

 

For this also look also again at the GRID and you will see how the YPs are all essentially the same whether in 12, 34, 56, 78, 90.

 

It is possible to ring Yorkshire on any number by using these rules.

 

But if you start with looking at major these rules are not obvious, and the chances are you will find something that works but which does not properly reflect the method structure.  If you know this, you create much better rules for remembering than if you don't. 

 

Most learners of surprise learn (as I did) by learning where the (large number of) dodges are rather than the (relatively few) omits, reflecting their previous experience of plain methods.  Don't do that, you will miscount.  

 

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Bristol Surprise

 

Bristol is harder to learn, ring and stay right than Yorkshire, especially above Major, because it includes points, backward hunting & dodging and fishtails, and there are many similar pieces of work to confuse within the same lead, and a lot of leads have similarities. Also getting the striking right is much harder.

 

From a blue line standpoint Major, Royal and Maximus are completely different and apparently unrelated.

 

The key is to learn it the right way, understanding and using the structure as a guide in addition to the "blue line".

 

Major - look at the grid diagram.

 

The major method forms the useful basis for all stages, because the method breaks into quarter lead 4-bell blocks, front and back, and those units remain key at higher stages, except that the hunt to a point and back is done on more bells. 

 

Because Bristol is a double method, the second quarter of the lead is the same rotated around the quarter lead point.

 

The lower block of the first quarter lead is controlled by the treble bob hunting by the treble, on the front 4 bells.  They start by treble bob hunting on 4, which ends at the quarter lead when the treble moves from  4ths to 5ths, with 36 places. 

 

Meanwhile the 4 bells above them plain hunt 3 blows to a point, and then 3 blows back again (wrong hunting). This ends at the same point they started at, followed by 58 places, and 36 at the quarter lead. 

 

The patterns that look like "Stedman whole turns" happen because when the bell reaches the limit of where it can go, it has to make a place and turn round.  If there are more bells, as in royal in maximus, this becomes more obvious as more bells hunt to a point unhindered.  You can imagine this by thinking of the bell that turns back at the end of the row as having "swapped" with a ghost bell coming down from outside the change. (see also Littleport Little below)

 

The second quarter of the lead is the same but rung backwards and with the front bells now hunting to a point, and the back bells treble bobbing around the treble. At the half lead the bells plain hunt 18.  

 

At the end of the lead the bells plain hunt.

 

Understanding this makes it much easier to remember only do fishtails immediately after or before the work with the treble at the lead and half lead, and only to do the hunting to a point/Stedman whole turn work when well away from the treble. 

 

Another point to notice is that all the "point" work is done with either your course or after bell. (Look at bell pairs on a line for Maximus: they are rarely apart) This is vital information for staying right, and for recovery if you go wrong. 

 

Final point - if you are wrong hunting, before and after the treble it is necessary to make a place, so as to pass the treble which is always treble bobbing "right".

 

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Littleport Little Royal and Maximus

 

Now look at the grid and lines of Littleport Little Royal and Maximus.  The front bells are just ringing Bristol Major. 

 

If you look at the grid, the back bells are doing a logical extension of the work of the bells in 78.  Above the treble's treble bob work in 78the upper bells do 3 dodges.

 

If you look at the start of the line for the 7, you can see it has hunted to a point 10, rather than Stedman whole turn work because it is not confined to stop at 8.

 

This method is a good training method to learn to ring structurally before attempting Bristol on higher numbers, as the back work consists of hunting to a point, then a fishtail, and then some version of 3 dodges (worked around the needs of the treble and then fishtail and hunt to a point an back.

 

============

 

Bristol Surprise Royal & Maximus

 

Look at the structure of these methods. 

 

The bits that are near the full lead and the half lead are the same as major, but there is now a segment around the quarter lead that includes 1 (royal) or two (maximus) wrong dodges.  If the dodge is with the treble then there are places each side so it it becomes a dodge right.

 

But the blue line order of work is completely different, as is the lead end order.  But if you learned to ring major using the structure, it is much easier to learn to ring these methods.

 

In fact without these insights, learning and ringing Bristol maximus is (for most people) pretty much impossible - look at the line - it is all far too similar.

 

------------

 M B Davies wrote this to a chat group about using the structure in Bristol:

 

I am not dissing the blueline, nor people who ring by it - I still use it myself.

What I'm saying is that the structure of the method is useful for all ringers, blueline ringers in particular. I'm dissing people who only ring by the blueline, and don't try to understand the structure. If you only learn the blueline, you are doing it the hard way. It's more effort to learn, and more effort to ring reliably. Blueline only is hard work; structure plus blueline is easy.

Here's how it works; take Bristol Royal as the example:

1. The blueline for Bristol Royal is difficult to learn. Viewed purely as a line, it is strange and alien compared to Bristol Major. It is double, so very self-similar, which can be useful, but can also be horribly confusing. It's quite long with lots of points and fishtails and weird places and dodges. None of it makes much sense. Learning it as a line can be a long and painful business.

 

2. By comparison, the structure of Bristol Royal is very simple. Everyone hunts to a point at hand, then wrong-hunts to a wrong dodge plus two treble-passing places, then carries on wrong hunting to a point at back. Repeated. If you get near the treble front or back, ring Bristol Major.

 

3. So you can learn and understand the structure in about thirty seconds.

 

4. Now in theory you could go off and ring the method straightaway, without having to worry about the blueline. But in practice, blueline ringers need a lot more help than that.

 

5. So back to the blueline. All of a sudden the alien landscape looks sensible and familiar. The "point, wrong dodge, point" applies to all of the place bells, and brings sense and order to their bluelines. Learning the blueline now becomes easy and enjoyable.

 

6. Ringing the method is now a lot easier, too. You have two points of reference, not one.

 

7. When you come to learn Bristol Max, instead of being a completely different method with a wildly different blueline, you find it is exactly the same method with virtually nothing new to learn. The same for even higher numbers.

 

==========

Another version:

 

The Rule for Bristol is as follows:
Hunt 3 places ... point ... hunt back and another 3 places ... dodge wrong (once for Royal, twice for
Maximus, thrice for 14 and four times for 16) ... hunt 3 places ... point ... hunt back 3 places. That
takes you to the half lead, so then do it all again.

Always make an extra place on each side when passing the treble. (If you hit your course or after bell,
it's time to make that place - the treble will be next).

 

If you find yourself trapped on the front or back, ring Bristol Major.

 

People often count the number of hunt blows in different ways. Some say "hunt 4 blows to a point," or
mix these around. The best way to understand the rule is to look at the grid yourself and work out
what's going on.

 

A particularly useful feature of Bristol is that the points and dodges all occur at the same place above
or below the treble.

 

There is a point blow made in each half lead, alternately at handstroke at backstroke.

 

The furthest points are made with your course or after bell (i.e. all of them in Major).

 

Hunting is right both sides of the half lead and lead end, and wrong between the points and wrong
dodges

 

Other bells are always passed in perfect plain bob coursing order (backwards when you are backward
hunting)

 

Oh, and it's double, of course.

==============

 

Final point.  Using the structure of the method as well as the blue line is perhaps the main difference between the typical surprise major ringer, and the typical ringer of advanced methods (Bristol onwards) on 12.

 

RHJ 22.7.2024, 3.5.2026