Folklore: English tradition, one more time!

Subject: English tradition, one more time!
From: MarkS
Date: 27 Jun 00 - 06:28 PM

These "tradition" threads have been a lot of fun. and useful in describing some little known English customs (Moris Dancing, eg). Thought I would change direction and get started on another little known English peculiarity.
Change Ringing

Anybody care to discuss the merits of Kent Treble Bob or the mentality of someone who would spend an afternoon creating dissonance with bells?
Could be a fun thread!

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: Llanfair
Date: 27 Jun 00 - 07:17 PM

Try reading "The Nine Tailors" by Dorothy L Sayers. A murder mystery, a ripping good yarn, and excellent insights into bellringing between the wars, when it was in it's heyday. Hwyl, Bron.

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 27 Jun 00 - 09:24 PM

Yes; "The Nine Tailors" is the closest I've ever got to understanding the appeal -if that's the right term!  It seems to require a very mathematical turn of mind, and I have to admit that I prefer the Mainland European habit of playing tunes on their bells.  An old friend of mine is very keen on Change Ringing, though; mind you, he'a a physicist.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: GUEST,Banjo Johnny
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 12:12 AM

Okay, I'm ready for a 90 minute CD, "Ringing the Changes at St. Swithins". Encore, encore!

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: The Shambles
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 01:53 AM

Do the BBC still do 'Church Bells On Sunday'?

It was an early morning programme on the radio from a particular church. It was a pretty exciting show.

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: Albatross
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 03:07 AM

Ringing the changes or whatever the term is for the horrible cacophony of tunelessness that pervades church bell ringing is disgusting and an insult to musicalness. Why can't they play tunes? It has always amazed me that church bells can be rung in such a way that there is never a tune or anything musical to come out of them. Why do we have to put up with it? Is it typical English perverseness, the tendency to resist being natural? I'm living in Oslo at the moment where some lovely polka type tunes get plonked out every hour.

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: Llanfair
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 04:33 AM

Yes, Shambles, they do. They call it "Bells on Sunday"
When I was a child, the church bells were a part of my life as my brother did bellringing. I love to hear the changes rung properly, and it is enormously skillful, as it requires controlling a huge bell to ring out at exactly the right moment.
Campanellas are OK in their place, but British bellringing should be preserved at all costs. Hwyl, Bron.

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 07:09 AM

There were these two fellas standing outside the Church, and the bells were ringing.

"Just you listen to that music" says the one.

"What was that you say?" says the other.

"JUST YOU LISTEN TO THAT MUSIC!" says the first.

"I CAN'T HEAR ANY MUSIC - THOSE BLOODY BELLS ARE DROWNING IT OUT!"

But clearly the second fella had cloth ears.

There are a couple of fine songs about bell-ringing - there's the one about a bellringing contest in Devon sung by Tony Rose ("the men of North Looe rang so steady and true that there never was better in Devon I own"), on "Young Hunting"; and there is "Hanley Church Bells" sung by Tim Laycock on his CD Fine Colours, with a tune of his own to a poem written in 1823.

Complaining about bells not playing tunes is a bit like the people who say "All that diddly-diddly music sounds the same". Best answer to that was a fella I heard on te radio talking about Irish music. "When I first heard it, I thought it all sounded the same. Then I got into it, and I realised it wasn't all the same at all. And then I got really into it, and I decided it was really all the same tune at the heart of it - and it was a tune I liked."

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 10:51 AM

Here is a link to the first song McGrath mentioned:  The Bellringing

Malcolm

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: Penny S.
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 02:21 PM

I rememember reading somewhere that the change-ringing was related to the method of threshing, where a bunch of men stood around the floor bashing the grain with flails. Obviously, they needed to do it in an order. Equally obviously it was going to be excruciatingly boring if they just went 1,2,3,4... so they invented change-flailing. (I wish I had kept the reference). This made it interesting for the mathematicians among them, and something of a game at which novices could be caught out and mocked for the others. This then was transferred to the bells. "Only the English" I believe the text included, "could have thought of using bells for working out mathematics."

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: The Shambles
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 02:41 PM

Maybe a better title for this thread would be 'English Tradition With Bells On'?

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 04:50 PM

George Ewart Evans had this to say about Threshing and Change-Ringing in The Farm & The Village (Faber 1969):

All those who had experience of threshing with the flail agree that it was monotonous and gruelling work, only relieved by having company -five or six men threshing on the middlestead at a time.  To break the monotony they resorted to many devices.  One of these was to keep a certain pre-arranged rhythm, and as we have seen the design of the flail lends itself to this.  In the Suffolk village of Barking those threshers who were also bell-ringers went onto the threshing floor together -perhaps half a dozen at a time; and they used the same rhythm while threshing as they as they used in the steeple when ringing the bells.  As they were change ringers, some of the rhythms were exceedingly subtle.  Most middlesteads were floored with elm or poplar before the coming of the machines (nearly all have since been concreted) and the threshing rhythm could be heard some distance from the barn.

There's an interesting account of village bell-ringing in Ewart Evans' Ask the Fellows who Cut the Hay.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 05:46 PM

Better than ringing them all together, simultaneously and at the same time, like the French do, and creating one unholy racket!!!

And yes, I used to do it too!!!! (mainly because they went to the pub afterwards, and the Girl Guides didn't...)

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: English tradition, one more time!
From: The Shambles
Date: 28 Jun 00 - 06:22 PM

My daughter stayed with her cousin, and went with her cousin's grandmother bell-ringing. When she returned home she expressed an interest in taking it up herself. She was about 10, at the time and I had the pleasure of taking her to the (cold) church for practice nights and waiting there all night, until she was ready to return.

She was probably a little young and did not keep it up for long but may possibly take it up in later life. They were a very friendly bunch and encouraged me to join in. I was not tempted. I don't think that I even considered for a moment that it had anything to do with music.

I don't think I have changed my mind.