Hacker News Reader

Comment by dcminter | Hacker News Reader

Not bell ringing - change ringing. Most places they play a tune on them; our ringers work out mathematical permutations instead.

Edit: ...and I should add: Sayers was quite reactionary, preternaturally English, and writing in the 1930s, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if it wasn't true that change ringing was uniquely English.

View on HN

… and writing a detective story rather than a non-fiction book.

The reality is that someone writing in Harper's in 2025 and using a Dorothy L. Sayers Peter Wimsey story from 1934 as a supporting source is presenting a hopelessly outdated and fictional picture of the world and is going to come up for starters against the Australia and New Zealand Association of Bellringers, founded in 1962.

* https://anzab.org.au

Apparently change ringing, or something similar, is practiced in Verona. But otherwise it seems unique to the UK, or UK influenced cultures.

Interesting, but the wikipedia article states that "they play slowly moving tunes, not the continuous change ringing of the English tradition"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronese_bell_ringing

So unless you have another reference...? (You did say "something similar" to be fair)

Here you go: https://www.whitingsociety.org.uk/articles/basic-tuition/ita...

There are a fair few videos on YouTube as well.

That link (like the Wikipedia article) is talking about the mechanism by which the bell is rung, not what is rung out on them i.e. they are not ringing the changes.

It's got compositions on the page, a link to a PDF with compositions in it and a link to the Veronese ringing association which has many more examples - if you can read Italian.

Ah, I stand corrected. I couldn't listen to the examples last night so I have egg on my face this morning :)

I hadn't completely checked it either FWIW so worth asking the question.

It does sound slightly different as they use chords.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com