Rounds & Call Changes
Frequently Asked Questions
This is our first post on this section about Rounds & Call Changes. Today we will focus on some of the questions we asked when we started our ringing careers
Remember if you have any questions that may not have been answered we will add them to this post once we have received the E-Mail.
Q: How do you know when to pull off?
A:When the treble says "Look To" you should look at the bell you are following and if possible get your bell to the balance. The treble will say "Treble's going!" and when the treble has gone you should start pulling just after the bell in front. E.g you are bell 3 so you should pull almost immediately after the number 2.
Q: Is it necessary to reach the backstroke balance when I have just pulled off.
A: It depends on how many bells you are ringing on and how heavy they are. If you are ringing on an average 6 (Tenor about 10-14 cwt) it is not really necessary to reach the balance. If you are ringing on anything more than 6 you should think about reaching the balance. If ringing on 10 or 12 it would be a good idea to set/hold at balance at the first backstroke while the bigger bells catch up. Equally if you are ringing on a small amount like 4 you need to leave a bigger gap between the bells for it to sound even. The key is to listen but generally it depends on the speed of ringing, the weight of the tenor and number of bells. If you have a good band around you, finding your speed is generally easier.
Q: If the conductor calls 2 to 3 and I am the number 4 does it affect me?
A: Not directly, it only affects which bell you would follow as the order changes from 123456 to 132456 so instead of following 3, follow 2.
Q: My bell doesn't seem to strike evenly, how do I rectify?
A: All bells are different and some are oddstruck meaning you should pull later or earlier to strike evenly. Again, the key is listening. Have a play around with ringing closer and futher away until you find the right spacing, try and stick to that for the rest of the rounds.
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Please send us more questions, we would love to answer them!
IJC & JM
Ringing Steady Rounds
Ringing Steady Rounds is a skill that you will use every single time you ring. We have decided to make a video instead of an article for Ringing Steady rounds and when it is ready for you to watch, we will post it below for you to see. Have a question about ringing steady rounds? Please don't hesitate to contact us via the contact page.
Common Orders in Call Changes
When you start ringing call changes, you will probably find that there are certain patterns and calls that are repeated either because they are easy to call, to ring or they just sound nice! What you might not realize is that these orders have names and will be rung in most places.
An easy and very common order that you will find rung is called 'Queens'. Queen’s is a way of splitting the bells into two parts, odd bell numbers and even bell numbers, both ascending. This will be the same for any number of bells but with two added or removed from the order. As most towers have six or eight bells, you will find Queens rung in the following order:
On Six: 1 3 5 2 4 6
On Eight: 1 3 5 7 2 4 6 8
What makes queens a great order is its simplicity; it is easy to remember what order you should be in so this can help you focus more on striking than being in the right place.
Another very common order and one that a lot of ringers like is Tittums, this is an example of an order that sounds musically great. Tittums gets its name from the sound it makes when rung, the essence of Tittums is to split the number of bells into half, the first bell of the first half, then the first bell of the second half etc…
Tittums sounds best on eight bells. This means that you take 1234 and 5678 as the two halves. This means that the final, order is 1 5 2 6 3 7 4 8 giving the recognisable ‘Tit – Tum’ sound from a lighter (and higher pitch) bell to a heavier (and lower pitch) bell.
Tittums is a little harder to remember but, if you know your bell number, it isn’t too difficult to work out. In terms of calling, just remember to put the bells into two halves and match the first, second, third etc… bells with each other in each half and you should be fine. There is a good skill in knowing an order and calling into the order without knowing exactly what to call, Tittums is a good method to start with because it has more calls that queens and is fairly easy to remember what the order should be.
With the previous two orders, the treble and the tenor have stayed in their position – at the front and at the back, this next order moves the treble and (if the conductor is feeling particularly mean) the tenor. This sounds interesting and is probably the easiest to remember – back rounds. This name is very self-explanatory, it's rounds but rung backwards. There are two ways to ring this – the first is to keep the tenor where it is and the second is to move the tenor down to lead.
1st way: 76543218
2nd way: 87654321
Both of these ways sound good but the first is more commonly rung as moving the tenor around can really complicate things for other ringers and moving an extra bell makes the ringing far longer which in most cases is not ideal.
The final order we are going to look at is Whittington’s, like Tittums this sounds nice and is rung quite commonly in towers. This is an odd order as it is only rung on six bells but can have more bells in the order. This makes more sense if you see the order:
6 bells:
The order is the odd bells descending then the even bell ascending.
531246
8 bells:
Simply Whittington’s on the back six, exactly the same as above but it the 1 and 2 bells staying in their position.
12753468
12 bells:
Like Tittums, split the bells in half and ring Whittington’s on 6 on the front 6 and the back 6, where 0 is the 10, E is the 11th and T the 12th bell.
531246E9780T
Learning orders comes with time. The more you ring them the more likely you are to remember them. An experienced ringer should be able to call the bells into a wide variety of changes but time and experience matter so don’t worry if you can’t remember them all. We find writing our favourite changes down on our phone helps so that you don’t forget them and you can just look in your notes on your phone before ringing and call them into that order, much easier than trying to remember them all!