Calling Touches

7/25/2019 Calling Touches

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Introduction

Fairly recently I began to learn how to call touches for simple methods.These pages collect together much of what I have learnt so far. I have

written this so that I have a record of what I thought as I was learning,before I take it all for granted, and I have put it online for other ringersbecause I noticed that there wasn't anything similar.

I have been adding more pages as I learn and I have tried to explaineverything fully and simply. It surprised me that calling a touch isactually not too difficult, so I would encourage anyone thinking abouttrying for the first time to give it a go.


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Examples of calling a plain course

Imagine you are ringing the 3 to Plain Bob Doubles...

12345 - ring rounds until everyone is steady

12345....12345 - "Go, Bob Doubles" at a handstroke123452143524153.13254 - you make 2nds

13524.15342 - you dodge 3-4 down1543214523 - you make long 5ths14253.

325142315421345 you are about to dodge 3-4 up12435 - "That's all!" at handstroke12345

So, to reiterate, this is what happens as you are huntingup to the 3-4 up dodge:

You have led, then you strike in 2nds place (the call iscoming soon), then in 3rds place (the call will be at thenext stroke), then in 4ths ("That's all!") and then you strikeback into 3rds place which is rounds.

I find it very helpful to give myself a running commentary(such as the remarks in brackets) as I get near to any call.


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It is really important

to put in sufficient mental preparation before you try and call any plaincourse, call changes, touch or quarter peal in the tower.

Learn the actual touch, i.e. what happens. Look at what the work of your chosen bell will be at each call. For each call know whether you will call it at handstroke or

backstroke. For each call work out what place your bell will be in. Look at how many leads there are between calls. (A lead is the

ringing between the treble leading and the treble leading again.) Go through the touch fully in your mind. Imagine you are ringing it.

I have found this kind of preparation very useful. If it seems too mucheffort, remember that once you get used to it and have calledsomething a few times then it will not be necessary anymore.


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12345678- wait for the rounds to beeven"2 to 3"

13245678 - ring this change a few times

"4 to 5"

13254678 - ring this change a few times

"2 to 5"13524678

"6 to 7"13524768

"4 to 7"13527468

"2 to 7"

13572468- this is Queens and soundsparticularly good, so ring thismore times"7 to 2"

13527468

"7 to 4"13524768

"7 to 6"13524678

"5 to 2"13254678

"5 to 4"13245678

"3 to 2"12345678 - back to rounds again

In this example we havegot back to rounds from

Queens in exact reverseto how we got there, so

each change is repeated.

Once you get used tocalling call changes you

will be able to callsomething more

complicated, ideally youwon't repeat any changes

and you will listen to try

and include a goodnumber of musical

changes.

Often people swap thebells over fairly swiftly

until they get to a musicalchange and then they

stay on that change for abit longer.

It is not compulsory to callthe bells into named

positions such as thosebelow. You can mix them

up as you like and also try

and find your own musicalchanges.

These are some musical changes that you can choose to go between:

Queens 135246 (on 6), 13572468 (on 8) - odd bells, then even bellsTittums 142536 (on 6), 15263748 (on 8)Whittingtons 12753468 - 1, 2, up the odds, down the evens

Kings- 531246 - Whittingtons on 6

Calling the bells into Queens


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Calling a particular bell unaffected:

Say my tower captain asks me to call the 3 to be unaffected and I amringing the 5. I have a little think before we start and before I call "Go,Plain Bob Doubles".

I know the first work of the 3 is to make 2nds, then he dodges 3-4down, then at the end of the third lead (as his third piece of work) hemakes long 5ths. This is where the bob needs to be for him to beunaffected and ring only plain courses. So the bob will be at the thirdlead. Then I work out that from the 5 I f irst dodge 3-4 up, then make2nds and as my third piece of work I would dodge 3-4 down. Howeverthis is where the bob is going to be so instead I will want to run in.

Since this first bob makes me run in I know that I need to call myself todo In, Out, Make. Now I start the touch and call myself to do that.

Keeping things right...You may like to look at the page on Coursing Orders if you areinterested in learning to keep people right in addition to putting thecalls in.

You can use these touches for other methods tooFor any method where you make long 5ths behind you can callyourself unaffected. Examples are Reverse Canterbury Pleasure PlaceDoubles, St Simons Bob Doubles, St Martins Bob Doubles. You canalso call In, Out, Make as you are about to dodge 3-4 down, make2nds, or dodge 3-4 up for the methods in which this happens.


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With Grandsire Doubles you can also have 240's where you have eachchange twice

The most commonly rung of these are called Morris' 240's after theircomposer. You can find some of these in the Ringing World Diary.

For a quarter peal of Grandsire Doubles you need ten 120's and a 60,just as for a quarter peal of Plain Bob Doubles. You can use the 240'sand other lengths too if you like.

Grandsire has a reputation of being hard to call. I do not understandexactly why this is and do not agree with it. If you do your preparationand work out where the calls will come as described above, there isabsolutely no reason why you should find it any harder than Plain Bob.


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This is how this touch is written out in, say, the Ringing World Diary.

First it tells us how many changes the touch is (112).You can see that the underlined row is rounds.

Each line represents a lead end, i.e. 1352746 is thechange at the treble's backstroke when it comesback to the front for the first time after we begin.[This change is more correctly called the lead headwith the lead end being at the treble's handstrokelead.] We do not include the treble in the notationbecause by definition it must always be at the front

of the change at a lead end.

A dash in the left column, "-", means that there is a bob at that leadend, a blank means it is a plain lead. If it were a touch with singlesthere would be an "S" against the lead ends where you needed to calla single.

"Repeat" tells you to ring it again. If a touch has "repeat twice" that

means you ring it 3 times in total, and so on. So from this way ofwriting the touch you can extract PBBPPBBP, and it's also a quickerway to see what each bell is doing at each lead end than alwaysworking it out from the beginning - for example, at the third lead endthe 5 has become 3rds place bell and so will make 2nds next time(providing there is no call).

112

234567

352746

- 357624

- 356472

543267

Repeat


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Further things you might like to do are

Work out the exact position of the calls, there is no point puttingthem one or two blows early or late.

Note that after your last call that makes you double-dodge 6-7 down

the 7 is in the hunt - handy if you've lost count of how many timesyou have double-dodged 6-7 down. Work out and learn which bell you dodge with at each part end -

then you can use this to check that everything is still right. Find your own pointers in the composition to get an idea of what is

happening. Look at the work of the 6 and 7.

I find it incredibly helpful to run through a quarter peal composition inadvance with a more experienced conductor, just to check that I haveunderstood properly what is going on.


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Calling Touches