Incomplete music

To ring eight bells requires eight ringers. We have fifteen members but rarely can all be present at once because of holidays, illness or other commitments. When more than eight are present we take turns with short pieces of ringing). For special performances, where we ring continuously for the whole session we arrange exactly eight ringers, drawing on friends from other towers if needed. But for Sunday morning ringing (when friends are ringing elsewhere) we have to be self sufficient, and sometimes we have too few to ring all the bells. So which do we ring?

Bells are in a diatonic scale (doh, ray, me, etc) and are numbered down the scale (1, 2, ... etc). You can omit bells from the top of the scale (eg 1 & 2 of 12) and leave a diatonic scale with fewer bells. We have eight bells and omitting 1 & 2 gives a diatonic six. That is musical but it includes the heaviest bells, which not all of our ringers are comfortable ringing. So depending on who is present we might omit 7 & 8 and ring the lighter (but less musical) ‘front six’.

With seven ringers we could omit 1 for a diatonic seven, but it is more musical to omit 2 because the 1 is the ‘tonic’, a whole octave above the 8.

With four ringers there are two options. Ringing 5, 6, 7, 8 gives a (heavy) diatonic 4 but 1, 2, 3, 4 is also a diatonic four (and much lighter) so we opt for that (unless we have ringers able to ring the heavy four well). There are other possibilities with four, for example 1, 4, 6, 8 are the notes of a major chord (doh, soh, me, doh) which sounds interesting.

With five ringers there aren’t any light musical options just the heavy five.

Another factor is the need to raise and lower the bells – between the safe state (mouth down) in which we leave them and the (mouth up) state needed for ringing full circle. It takes effort and time, especially for the heavier bells. We can leave them up after morning ringing if there is a quarter peal in the evening, but otherwise we need to raise and lower whatever bells we ring during the morning session. That can bias us towards a lighter option. So when you hear the bells ringing, listen for how many there are. If there are fewer than eight then try to work out which bells are being rung.

John Harrison (May 2025)