Thank you, Austin, for getting the ball rolling here, and Leland and Bryn for creating Ringingroom.

I'm working my way up the learning curve, especially on the Discord. I had the Discord in one window and Ringingroom in another, side-by-side on my laptop screen, and by the end of the evening I was getting better at clicking on the window I wanted to work in. The Chat locations in Discord kept scrolling up out of view when I changed from one Voice room to another, so I will work on my object permanence skills for next time.

I am using an ancient USB headset with microphone (as in, the foam covering the ear speakers is returning to its dinosaur petroleum roots) but was able to hear well and keep the microphone on without trouble, as far as I can tell. I have used both wired and Bluetooth headphones for practicing on http://tadhill.com/ringing/# and wired is far superior.

It was great fun experimenting on higher numbers, and as we all develop our internal rhythm and get used to the tiny delay, I look forward to doing more of it. The PB Minor at the beginning was getting smoother and smoother, and the last course of Cambridge 6 at the end was cooking along. I am looking forward to working up to 8 bells and beyond (though maybe not to Infinity...).

John

On Wed, Apr 1, 2020 at 10:47 PM Austin Paul <austinjpaul@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

Thanks for coming to practice tonight, and thanks for being patient while
we figure out this online ringing thing. And a huge thank you to Leland and
Bryn for making it possible!

We have 30 accounts that have accessed the Discord server so far, and at
least 20 of us were there at some point tonight. It's really lovely to hear
your voices and ring with y'all while we're all trapped at home.

I do want to share a few notes of things that may or may not be helpful in
the future:
1) I am VERY open to feedback: do let me know what you thought of practice,
and please do suggest ways you think might make it go smoother. There's a
lot of trial-and-error at this point, as we all learn how this software
works on the fly.
2) The Discord server (https://discord.gg/sEqh9pV) continues to exist 24-7
(the ringingrooms generally stay up too). You can sign in whenever and
interact with whoever is there. Feel free to poke around the
settings/features, or even organize extra ringing or social time if you
feel so inclined. (e.g. Sunday morning is an option, but I can't guarantee
I'll be there)
3) I've created a #pub chat to go with the Pub voice channel. I think we'll
use "General"s for organizing, and "Pub"s for casual social (and of course,
the "Room"s for ringing.) Voice chat and text chats are separate entities,
being in one doesn't guarantee being in the other.
4) A lot of browsers don't like tabs that make noise before you interact
with them, so you may have to click somewhere on a ringingroom page before
it'll play sound. And maybe some browsers are maybe having issues hearing a
mic while they're in the background? Different browsers are different,
YMMV. Headphones help reduce echo. So does muting yourself when you're not
talking.
5) I really do want to have social time that isn't just ringing in the app.
The #Pub channels had some traction post-practice. Perhaps people can hang
out there pre-practice too?

I hope you all had fun, and I hope things will go even better next week
once we're more familiar with this new mode of practice.

See you next week!
or Monday for handbells ;)

AP

On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 11:12 PM Austin Paul <austinjpaul@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> Yes, you read that right, Practice!
>
> Bryn and Leland have been designing a distributed ringing app (
> https://ringingroom.com/), and tonight we successfully had a handbell
> practice on it, so I will be hosting a 'tower bell' practice on Wednesday
> from 7-9. All are welcome to join.
>
> I have created a Discord server ( https://discord.gg/sEqh9pV ) for voice
> and text communication, and it seems to work decently well. You should be
> able to create an account without even linking an email address, and the
> above link should give you access to the 'bcr' server.
>
> A couple notes: the background noise cancellation on Discord is worse than
> Zoom, so headphones are recommended. Also, the ringing room app does not
> work well on mobile, but you're still welcome to hang out and chat on
> Discord if you don't want to ring.
>
> Let me know if you have any questions or issues.
> Hope to see you Wednesday!
>
> AP
>
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