Re: Question on compositions

["Don Morrison" <dfm ringing org>]

On Dec 5, 2007 8:52 AM, Lillian Yiyuan <lillie yiyuan gmail com> wrote:
> Thank you every one for the help, I will request the books through
> inter-library loan as my institution does not have them in their catalog.
> The specific question is on how to read the numbers going down the left 
> hand
> section and the abbreviations at the top.

Most commonly the numbers down the left column are course heads. For
most methods and the most common way of presenting compositions this
is the backstroke row of the treble's full lead, when the tenor ends
up in last place. For simple compositions of royal and maximus this
will be every 9 and 11 leads, respectively. For major it might be
every 7, though it's far more common in major to have the tenors
affected by some calls, and thus you end up with varying course
lengths.

In the most common cases the column headings refer to where the tenor
is when a call is made. At even stages, H (Home) usually means when
it's in last place; W (Wrong) when it's in the penultimate place; M
(Middle) when it's in the ante-penultimate place; and B (Before) when
it runs out at a bob or makes seconds at a single.

All those weasel words about "usually" and "most commonly" are
important. None of this applies to most (weasel word again!)
compositions of some very commonly rung methods such as Grandsire,
Stedman and Double Norwich. And while for most other commonly rung
methods it probably applied to the vast majority of compositions in
common use forty years ago, I'd guess that over half the compositions
newly published today at least augment the above with any of various
other things, or do something else entirely.



-- 
 Don Morrison <dfm ringing org>, <dfm2 cmu edu>
"A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks
they've lost."
  -- Terry Pratchett, _The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents_