Change Rows

The origin of the Change-Row

Change ringing developed because bells hung in towers, and weighing several hundredweight had wheels attached and were swung higher and higher until they turned a full circle. With a limited number of notes (often just the five or six lower notes of a diatonic, octave) and the fastest repeat of a note being about 2 seconds, music as we know it is impossible.

On the continent this developed in two ways, the first being a small number of bells, chimed (swinging through maybe 30 to 45 degrees), and allowed to chime (i.e. clash and clang) at the same time, in smaller churches. The second, in the larger Abbeys and Cathedrals the installation of a larger number of bells, often with a chromatic scale, and hit by hammers operated from a keyboard. In this case musical tunes are possible, and are uniquely tuneful owing to the percussive nature and slow fade of each note.

In the England we found that a bell could be swung just past the vertical, and the ringer could balance the bell at that point thereby delaying how long it would be before the note was repeated. Also, by watching other ringers you could ensure that no two bells rang at the same moment. So it was then possible to ring the bells for example in the order down the scale from highest pitch to the lowest pitch without discordant clashes. And by delaying one bell on the balance, and checking another, the order in which notes could be struck could be changed, again without clashing.

In the ringing chamber it is easier to associate a number with a rope than to associate a pitch, and the ropes normally hang in a musical order, and visually the ropes fall and rise in order around the circle.

Hence ringing 1-2-3-4-5-6 became known as ringing “rounds”. The sound is musical without being music, rhythmic, repetitive, but after a short while, boring.

Written out this would look like:
1-2-3-4-5-6
1-2-3-4-5-6

1-2-3-4-5-6
1-2-3-4-5-6

1-2-3-4-5-6
1-2-3-4-5-6

1-2-3-4-5-6
1-2-3-4-5-6

The separation into pairs of rows is in recognition of the normal rhythm of ringing where a short pause (roughly the space for one bell note) is inserted to quantify the rhythm.

It is a small step from there to get to change ringing where the sequence alters at every pull of the rope. So simple change ringing on 4 bells would look like:

1 2 3 4
2 1 4 3
2 4 1 3
4 2 3 1
4 3 2 1
3 4 1 2
3 1 4 2
1 3 2 4
1 2 3 4
8 sequences before repetition occurs

Change ringers then developed more and more complex patterns and techniques for extending the number of sequences (or changes) without repetition. The patterns and techniques are, today, known as methods.

"Methods" are at the heart of all change ringing. “Complib” is the acknowledged definitive list of methods and has over 23,000 different entries as at August 2023.

Various classifications of Methods are coded in the library, and relate to the structural nature of the methods. Some are simple, some are complex, some are fiendishly complicated.

The methods for tower bells are identical with the methods for handbells. A single handbell is often rung in the tower as a means of practice for ringing a single tower bell. Handbell change ringing is always done with two handbells; this demands a different set of ringing skills, hence this website.

Various strategies are used to reduce the mental challenge of ringing a pair of bells but nothing replaces the need to study the structure of the ringing methods in great detail. This study pays dividends in both handbell ringing and towerbell ringing.

The word "Peal" is often used to describe a set of tower bells. Our usage here is as a noun describing a specific number of change rows. See “Peal” .

The maximum number of unique sequences rises rapidly from the 24 available with 4 bells to the 5,040 available with 7 bells, and the 40,320 available with 8 bells. For various reasons 5,000 changes became a standard length and is known as a full peal, as opposed to a shorter standard length of 1,250 changes known as a quarter peal.