Method Practice

Going Solo

Learn the method thoroughly before starting to practice. "Thoroughly" means well enough to have a shot at ringing a Plain Course.

Test yourself. Are you able to recite the places your pair(s) will strike in? If not, you are not ready to practice.

Thumbs

Once you are ready to try for a plain course (and this technique can be used at all levels of method ringing), set your mental counter running as if listening to rounds. If you are ringing 1-2, your right thumb represents treble, and left thumb represents 2.
Start with fingers curled and thumbs extended, raise your right thumb every time you would ring treble and left thumb every time you would ring 2.
Do this to the "emphasised counting" technique.

Apart from driving people away, this technique has the benefit of making you express the method at ringing speed.
One eminenet ringer used it in pre-Abel days to practice Cambridge Surprise Royal in preparation for a (successful) peal attempt.

Steaming ahead

Patience, persistence, and a crystal clear mind are all needed for a successful career as a handbell change ringer, but if you are looking for the ability rapidly to adopt new methods, or become reliable as a ringer or conductor, the use of a computer based simulation is necessary.

The use of Abel, Ringing Room, or Handbell Stadium dramatically accelerates ringing progress.

E-Bells

Before e-bells were created we had "Motion Controllers", which were actually "Motion Detectors", see YouTube for a video of Graham John using the Abel Simulator with Motion Controllers.

Abel

Abel Simulator has many features and applications our intent here is to provvide enough information to enable you to get going should you wish to do so. This site provides the Abel codes for the listed compositions.

Abel comes with all of the methods discussed on this site pre-loaded,

Abel Simulator, is available for download to desktop computers from:

Collaboration across the internet

Bellringing (both tower and hand) is a team "sport", and whilst skills can and need to be developed as an individual, those skills become truly useful when you join (or build) a team. There are two key facilities for doing this, Ringing Room and Handbell Stadium

Ringing Room

Ringing Room has a visual display that is similar to Abel in that the bell movement is a 2-dimensional display. The power of ringing room is that it can be used by people in disparate locations.

Ringing Room can be used with motion controllers, e-bells or by tapping the keyboard; the best mechanism is clearly e-bells. Ringing Room has a built-in motion detector, but the experience of this webmaster is that Handbell Manager is the most reliable and helpful way of driving the software.

Goto Ringing Room to Log On to Ringing Room.

Handbell Stadium

Handbell Stadium has two main advantages as compared with Ringing Room, a 3-dimensional display, and load balancing across the internet.

Meeting to ring

As noted above, ringing is a team sport. The best environment for developing as a team is the meeting place, and for handbell ringers this usuall means the comfort of the living room with the added benefit of abundant coffee, tea, and chocolate biscuits available in the kitchen.

Two different types of meeting are noted:

Method and Skills Practice

Methods and skills practice needs a leader that understands the abilities and needs of the band, a sufficient number of proficient ringers a set of bells

And the time is then productively used ringing the required methods.

Performances

Performances need exactly the right number of people with the right skills and approach to achieve the aspired method length. Success frequemtly rests on the individual band members having time to prepare properly for the quest.