Comment by gorgoiler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gorgoiler | Hacker News Reader

The study of tintinnabulation!

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/tintinnabulation

One of the many remarkable things about Elizabeth II’s death was the amount of bell ringing to be heard. It was also a rare opportunity to hear muffled bells being rung — the muffles used as a mark of respect for the nation in mourning.

The upcoming coronation will see many teams around England attempting some record breaking change ringing. I’m assuming Westminster Abbey will go for something enormous. If you’ve not heard of change ringing before, try to imagine pressing each key on your keyboard’s numpad in sequence and (i) doing it for every possible sequence, (ii) instead of pushing all the buttons yourself you do it as a team of twelve, and (iii) instead of pushing a key you have to swing a 500lb cast metal bell hanging thirty feet over your head.

And the upshot of (iii) is that you have to start swinging that bell _before_ the preceding bell has sounded.

This is called "ropesight" and is the hardest thing to grasp about bellringing. Essentially you need to watch, out of the corner of your eye, every other ringer in the chamber: typically six bells in a village parish church, eight in many town churches, 12 or even more in a cathedral. When you've identified which ones should be sounding before you in the sequence, you need to make sure your bell is swinging a fraction of a second after theirs. To do this you need to watch their movements, listen to the pace of the bells, and have full control of the speed you're swinging the bell.

For an experienced ringer it's second nature. But it's the hardest thing for a beginner to learn.

Despite not being religious at all, I have done a bit of bell ringing. In response to (iii), the actual ringing of the bell is fairly easy once you get into the rhythm.

From speaking to the regulars (who wanted me to keep coming back so I'd be prepared and available to ring for the Coronation), I can tell you that a full peal requires at least 5040 changes (swaps, if you will, so instead of ringing 1-2-3-4 you might ring 1-3-2-4) and take a good 3-4 hours to complete!

Yes, I've rung about 20 peals most of them taking over 3 hours. Physically it's not that difficult but it is a mental challenge as you can't let your mind wander otherwise you will go wrong and the whole sequence of 5000+ changes (combinations) will be terminated prematurely.

That so musically wells?

From the bells, bells, bells, bells.

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