In the UK, there are societies of people who ring church bells-in very elaborate sequences of notes. i forget what this is called-but anyway, are there any CDs of these bells being rung? I’m wondering how to buy one!
Thanks!
Campanology is the art (or science) of bell-ringing. Look for this term, or “change-ringing”. Dunno what the art of posting in the right forum is called …
Campanologists. Were you planning on calling them all bastards?
Noisy sonsofbitches.
Ex-campanologist checking in.
Most churches have 6 bells, and the changes are based on mathematical patterns, with bells changing places in the running order, e.g.
1 2 3 4 5 6
2 1 4 3 6 5
2 4 1 6 3 5
4 2 6 1 5 3
4 6 2 5 1 3
6 4 5 3 3 1
and so on until they get back into the same order they started.
There are peals, which fulfil an even more complex pattern and last hours, and also half and quarter peals. This gets even more complex if there are more than 6 bells - sometimes 8 and even up to 12.
I don’t know about CDs (though I’m sure they’re available), but the BBC has a short program every week called “Bells on Sunday”. You can listen to excerpts of bells here.
To be honest, I often catch this, and it always sounds cacophanous to me. I can never tell the patterns apart, but then I haven’t done it for maybe 15 years.
How about Hunch-Backed Bastards? I only wish that site listed their addresses so I could start my lawnmower under each ones bedroom window at 7am on Their day to sleep late. Grrrrr…
Try reading The Nine Tailors , a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery by Dorothy Sayers. Campanology plays a part in the story and is described in some detail (too much, perhaps 
). And also, it’s a rather good read.
We’ve really got everyone on the boards, haven’t we?
I remember when someone tossed off a joke about a gay Muslim albino, and I mentioned my first boyfriend was one.
Robbert Rankin reference: “What happened to you?” “How was I supposed to know there was a one-legged lesbian shotputter in the bar when I told that joke?”
Anyway, a good friend from school (the story would fit better with matt_mcl’s if she was my girlfriend, but she wasn’t) joined the campanology society at university.
Their slogan was: “Can you pull 1600 times in one hour? We can!”
You don’t have campanologists in the US? How do you, uh, someone help me, why can’t they live without campanologists?
[nitpick]Wouldn’t that last set be 6 4 5 2 3 1? If you’re going to be sequential.[/nitpick]
There are campanologists in the U.S., but they’re few and far between. There’s a peal of bells in the Old Post Office building at 1000 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. where they do change-ringing, and they practice at lunchtime one day a week. I worked right across the street; it was always a pleasure listening to the peals, even though I couldn’t figure out the sequences by listening. I assume there must be some elsewhere, too, but that’s the only one I personally know of.
AFAIK they are called “ringers”: The Washington Ringing Society
http://www.gcna.org/data/linksNAntr.html
I had also heard pealing before. This page uses ringer, ringing as well as pealer, pealing, peal band. http://ascy.org.uk/galleries/2002/washington.htm
sailor, in the UK (which is what the question is about) they’re normally called “bell ringers”, but the OP asked for the fancy-schmancy term.
Campanalogical tintinabulation.
Actually, the last set should be
6 4 5 2 3 1
followed by
654321
A bell can only change positions with the bell on either side of it or stay in the same place, and what one bell does affects what the other bells do. For example, if the 2nd and 3rd bells switch places (become the 3rd and 2nd bells), the first one has to stay put.
Change ringing is also not confined to England – I rang bells at St. Andrews Cathedral in Honolulu, which once had a pair of bellringers ring bells on Easter Sunday, get on a plane, and arrive at St. Andrews to ring bells on Easter Sunday. Then there were good, kind people of the bell tower in Vancouver, who, out of the kindness of their hearts, would take the trouble to come to Hawaii to teach us how to ring our newly acquired bells in February. Truly, their charity should inspire us all! 
There are also bells in various other places in the U.S, including Houston, TX and Little Rock, AR, as well as Boston’s Old North Church – Paul Revere was a bell ringer!
As for me, I’m second generation – my mother and I have both rung bells together once Hawaii got theirs. My two favourites weighed 769 lbs and 836 lbs – the original heavy metal!
So, what is this doing in the Pit?
CJ
fancy-schmancy term? Hmm, let me think for a minute. Having lived for a while on Pennsylvania Avenue, across from the Old Post Office, and this being the Pit, I would call them “the SOBs who would not let me sleep with their freaking games”.
BTW… why is this in the Pit?
Moderator’s Note: Moving from the Pit to GQ.
I’ve never seen a thread moved this-a-way before!
Anecdote: when I rang bells in a little village, a family moved to a house next to the church. They knew of the existence of the belltower, the bells of which have been ringing there regularly for at least the past 600 years. They moved in anways. No sooner had they moved in than they applied at the local council to get the bells stopped. They failed. And someone rested a full bag of manure against their front door with one side of it slashed open, rang the doorbell and ran away.
Can someone come up with a witty moral to this story?
In the US, we’re a mechanized lot, and it’s hard to get 6 or 12 of us together for practice. We tend to build carrillons, so one musician can play the whole set. I understand that change ringing can be like chamber music, but we’re not like that. Delegate six people’s work to one guy, that’s our style. What’s that Oldfield guy’s name, Barney? Ooo, I wanna smack him.
I thought so. I just couldn’t find a cite. Thanks.