Conducting Stedman Triples

Caveat

Stedman Triples is a beautiful area of endeavour but is rarely tackled by handbell ringers owing to its unique (?) challenges. In writing this page on conducting, we are very aware that our knowledge and experience is limited, so would advise anyone wishing to develop skills relating to Stedman to study the literature, practice a lot, pick brains. and thereby become more masterful of this superb method.

Some brains worth picking ring handbells in Albany Quadrant in Glasgow, have a look at: Simon Gay's Blog entry

The primary responsibilities of a conductor are

• To ring his/her own pair correctly.
• To make the calls
• To check that the bells ring true to the composition
• To assist others to overcome trips

The basic structure of Stedman works equally well on all odd-number stages 5 bells and above. The generic aspects of the structure of Stedman are documented at Stedman Structure .

Ring Your Own Pair Correctly.

The pages on Structure , The Slow Work and Techniques provide some information to help the double-handed ringer into Stedman. Specifically we have recommended techniques aimed at avoiding guesswork with respect to entering the slow.

We recommend that a ringer should be well practised in the technique of continual observation of the leading before starting to learn how to conduct.

Calling Stedman Triples

Learn the composition thoroughly and ensure you know how to make calls in correct place

before tackling Stedman Triples.

As with Hunter class methods, there is more than one approach to calling touches, these are normally split into "dead reckoning" and Observation bells. "Dead Reckoning" is the process of counting plain six ends in order to know when to make the next call. A good example is the single course touch of 84 at S&G 2.1. This can be called as 2 plain, 2 bobs, 2 plain, 2 bobs, 3 plain, 2 bobs, plain. The same touch can be called using 7th observation as S, L, Q

The Abel coding will give you a Dead Reckoning view of the composition. Dead Reckoning is generally not suitable as an approach for long or complex touches.

Checking for correctness.

"Background".

Within the parameters set by the method in hand, Hunter based methods display Natural Coursing Order: to a greater or lesser degree. Plain Bob is 100% pure, natural Coursing Order, other methods less so. Comparison of the actual coursing order being rung by the bells, and the coursing order called for by the composition enable the conductor to cast a wary (weary?) eye over the ringing. Discrepancies should be corrected as soon as they are discovered, or the touch needs to be abandoned. (NB, in a learning / teaching situation there can be more value in letting the bells continue rather than stopping the touch, and then learning from the problem).

In Stedman, the method structure creates a fixed set of relationships, this is Coursing Order, but it is NOT natural coursing order. As I write (March 2025) we do not have enough knowledge to suggest how these relationships can be used for checking.

Spot checks.

Examine the proposed touch for recognisable change rows (e.g. Queens), and understand how those rows relate to the work of the observation bell. Look for the rows at the appropriate point whilst ringing.

Many lengths are split into parts, the 1260 listed at composition 5 is a classic example. Learn the part ends and check them as they occur.

Coursing Order.

The plain course is 7 repetitions of the 12 rows made from a quick 6 and a slow 6. Consequemtly the sequence in which the bells perform any one piece of work is fixed and may be described as a Coursing Order.

Transposing coursing orders in Stedman is more complex than in regular hunter class methods, see below.

Coursing Order.

The Ringing World article by Derek Butterworth can be accessed here:
RW Link

Simon Gay (Glasgow) also posted a very encouraging article on the Handbells Blog, viz:
Thoughts on coursing order in Stedman Triples