This post is about how to quickly make up short spliced compositions suitable for a practice night. The entire focus is on how to make something that will come round, without having to simply memorize compositions that work.
In some ways, coming up with a spliced touch for a practice night is easier than making a single-method touch!
In all cases we rely on the fact that most methods have the same leadheads as Plain Bob (backstroke rows of the plain course where the treble is leading):
| Leadheads of Plain Bob Minor |
|---|
| 1 135264 |
| 2 156342 |
| 3 164523 |
| 4 142635 |
| (5 123456) |
These leadheads don’t always occur in the same order. For example, the first leadhead of Cambridge Surprise Minor is 156342, number 2 in the table above.
To splice methods, you just have to know which Plain Bob leadhead occurs first in the method, OR the place bell order, which is equivalent!
Looking at the table below, you need to get from each method you want to use to the number in the third column.
| Method(s) | Place bell order | Number of first leadhead |
|---|---|---|
| Plain Bob, Reverse Bob | 24653 | 1 |
| Double Bob, Cambridge Surprise | 26345 | 2 |
| Little Bob | 25436 | 3 |
| St Clement’s | 23564 | 4 |
That number from the third column is assigned to each lead of the method in the touch. On minor, if all the lead numbers add up to a multiple of 5, the touch will come round!
Examples
4 St Clement's
1 Plain Bob
4+1 = 5 That's all!
1 Plain Bob
3 Little Bob
1 Plain Bob
3 Little Bob
3 Little Bob
4 St Clement's
The order doesn’t matter in any of the above—two leads of Plain Bob and one of Little Bob will come round whether it’s PLP, PPL, or LPP.
Putting together touches this way ensures they will come round and gives you the length in leads. Some of these touches will be false but that’s fine for a practice!
A bit more info
St Clement’s can be thought of as -1 instead of 4, and Little Bob as -2 instead of 3.
All these methods that share Plain Bob leadheads also have letter codes assigned based on their first leadhead. These aren’t necessarily used for actually assembling touches but they appear in Abel/Mabel/Mobel place notation, and to indicate when a composition will work for a whole category of methods, so it can be helpful to know what they are. The full Central Council explanation is here.
Here are the codes for minor methods:
| Number | Code (2nds place lead end) | Code (6ths place lead end) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | a | g |
| 2 | b | h |
| 3 or -2 | e | l |
| 4 or -1 | f | m |
You may notice that the letters c and d are missing! That’s because they’re reserved for major and above…
More Bells
On minor, you want the numbers to add up to a multiple of five, because there are five leads in a plain course of any of these methods. On major, you need a multiple of seven; on royal a multiple of nine; and so on.
St Clement’s and Kent Treble Bob, on any number of bells, have the Plain Bob leadheads in reverse order. They can therefore always be thought of as -1. The positive number will be different for different stages, so sticking with -1 can be easier. Little Bob is similarly always -2. Cambridge and Yorkshire are always 2. Bristol is always -8 (I can’t explain this but it is a fact).
Some common practice-night touches explained
What is often called a half course of Cambridge, where the conductor calls “plain hunt” when the 3 is about to make 2nds, could be thought of as Cambridge spliced with Primrose. Cambridge is always 2 and Primrose is always 1 (methods with a plain hunt lead end are always one less than their 2nds-place counterpart). So on major, you can ring three leads of Cambridge and one of Primrose: 2+2+2+1=7. This is also the easiest way to add this composition to Mobel. For Yorkshire the second method needed is called Woodstock.
The arithmetic I’ve explained above is the way to figure out how to ring a few leads of something and bring it round with Little Bob. For instance, five leads of London Surprise Major plus one of Little Bob would come round (-1×5 -2 = -7), or three leads of London plus two of Little Bob.
Next Steps
I’ll make a separate post about incorporating bobs and singles into spliced compositions. When you’re ready for more, check here for a link to that!
Among Sallies and Bobs 