Alternative Rope Sight Ideas

In the previous post I commented on the difficulty of teaching rope sight, I thought I would expand on some thoughts and ideas to practice/develop this tool.

Covering

A cover is the name given to the last bell to sound in a method where it never changes, i.e. the 6th during plain hunt on 5.
When covering, it is not necessary to know the order of bells that you follow but by covering you know that the pace of your ringing doesn't need to change so you have your set rhythm and can set about just spotting the last bell.
This then enables the tenor ringer to see the bells coming up to the back and has the advantage that they are only concentrating on which is the last bell and not needing to change pace.

Spot the order

Slightly more of a challenge. While sitting out of the circle, wait for a couple of call changes to be called and see if you can spot the order of the bells.
This has the advantage that once you have spotted one bell, you can disregard it when trying to observe the order.

E.g. if the bells are in tittums 142536.

The learner can spot the treble is leading, so they know when looking for the 2nd place bell they don't need to look at the treble. Then once the 4 has been observed there are then only four other bells to try and spot.

Trebling to a little method

Previous posts have detailed various little methods for doubles (http://ringingtips.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Little) and ringing the treble to some of these helps the ringer develop some rope sight. But only needing to spot up to thirds (so up to two other ropes beneath them).

Bistow is just making 2nds so you only need to spot which bell takes you from the lead.

Stanwell, Clewer, Hampton, Laleham have fairly straight forward rules; so the bell order you pass will be ABAB lead lead BCBC, that is the bell that takes you from the lead you ring over in the 2nd place of thirds, the bell you ring over in your first blow in thirds takes you out of the lead.

Littleton is slightly different with the order being ABBA lead lead CDDC, the bell that takes you out of the lead, you take out of the lead, and the 2 blows in third over the same bell.

Grandsire

Ringing either of the hunt bells for Grandsire are useful, this one is more complicated and requires the ringer to have a feel of hunting all the way to the back, but with sign posts as to what is their first/last bell.

Rope sight

What is Rope Sight?

Rope sight is effectively two things, that are both the same yet slightly different depending on how you view things. Most simplistically, rope sight is the ability to "see" which bell you need to follow. The extension of this is that you can also see which place you are in.
From rounds if you look from treble to tenor each bell pulls off in order. Six is following the five, five the four, four the three and so on.
Now instead of thinking about which bell you are following, consider which place you are in.
If you are on the 3rd bell, you are in 3rds place. That is you are the third bell to ring. So if you look at the ropes, the treble and the two will pull off before you do. If a call is made treble to two, the order becomes 213456, the 3rd stays in the same place, though the bell it follows is different. So using rope sight you can see you follow the treble, but there are still two pulls before you do.

If we were back in rounds and three was called to four making the order 124356, you know from the call that you are following the four, but what has also happened you have moved "up" one place. So looking around there are now three pulls before you do.

Then if it is called three to five, making the order 124536, again you know from the call you are following the 5th but the place is now 5ths place. So four ropes are pulled before you pull off.

How can you teach/learn Rope Sight?

This is the hard question, a lot of ringers when asked this will think and then respond that it "sort of happened", or "something clicked and I could see it". Without it, it makes ringing quite difficult, but generally does come to people in time.
There are things that you can do to try and help "see" it.(http://ringingtips.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/progress-while-not-ringing.html)
(http://ringingtips.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/churchyard-bob-plain-hunt-with.html)

Other things that could be done is to ring plain hunt, but instead of thinking about the bells you follow, consider what place you are in at any given time, so imaging you are on the Treble think, with the number in brackets showing the order of bells in front of you:

2nds place - 1 Rope (2)
3rds place - 2 Ropes (2,4)
4ths place - 3 Ropes (4,2,5)
5ths place - 4 Ropes (4,5,2,3)
5ths place - 4 Ropes (5,4,3,2)
4ths place - 3 Ropes (5,3,4)
3rds place - 2 Ropes (3,5)
2nds place - 1 Rope (3)
Lead - 0 Ropes (-)
Lead - 0 Ropes (-)

The other advantage of ringing plain hunt is that once you have rang over that rope, you will not follow them again until after you have reached the back, so you can effectively ignore that rope when spotting the new one.

Something a "Little" Different (part 1)

Sometimes there is a need to ring something slightly different but the band is not experienced enough to make a significant change to the repertoire, after all the change from ringing Bob Minor to Kent Minor is a significant step and might not be all that achievable.

This time I shall present a number of little methods for doubles to shake up the Bob Doubles/Grandsire Doubles lassitude.

Little methods are methods where the treble does not hunt all the way to 5ths place.

Bistow Little Bob - (Hunt to 2nds)

The treble hunts to 2nds place, so can be done by a competent "Mexican-waver" but isn't confident enough to hunt all the way to 5ths. This method helps the treble ringer to develop ropesight as they are able to look for their new bell each time.
The rest ring all the work of Plain Bob Doubles but without the hunting and the 2nds, the other big difference is that the "work" is done at the start of the lead (like Grandsire) and not the end (like Plain Bob Doubles.

Progress while not ringing

There are times when you wish that your learners would just “get it” or make quicker progress than they do. There are certain activities that they can do to improve their skills when not ringing.

Improving rope sight

Rope sight is a difficult thing to teach, some people just see it, others struggle and never quite get it. There are several exercises that the learner can do to try and help them improve their rope sight while sat watching ringing.

·         Whilst ringing with a covering tenor, get the learner to try and spot who the tenor is following

·         Try and spot what order the bells lead in

·         Try and spot whom the treble is following

These are best attempted while ringing plain methods like Bob Doubles.

Improving listening skills

Being able to hear your bell in the change is an art and with more and more bells is even more difficult, but if you can hear it then you can correct any crashes around yourself, so what the learner can do is while they are sitting and waiting try and get them to hear the treble or the tenor in the change, and where it is and if it moves. Picking the treble or the tenor is easiest as they are the highest or lowest notes in the change, once they can do that move on to the 2^nd (or 2^nd to last) bell and they can repeat until they are able to hear where the middle bells are without difficulty.

Homework

At the handling stage there is very little that can be done away from the tower, however, once the learner is confident at called changes you can start giving them things to think about during the week in between practices. Simple things could include getting them to think about how they would call changes from Rounds to Queens and back, the blue line (or circle of work) for doubles methods. It seems to me that the more experienced ringers become the more “homework” they do learning new compositions/methods indeed my desk is usually strewn with blue lines that I have drawn out.