Hello! Happy Sunday :) and the first Sunday I haven't rung on for a while... I was in a village near Northampton this weekend, and the one day where the local towers weren't ringing!!
On Wednesday I joined a 12-bell practice, and for the first time rang the tenor to Grandsire Cinques — 11 bells in front of you moving around, and you're (ideally) at the back, in the right place every time.
The first 11 bells in the first section of Grandsire Cinques.
The hard thing about higher bell numbers is that 1) there's longer between each strike, and 2) you have to be more accurate. You can often get away with being 300ms out of place on 6, but on 12 it's very noticeable. I did okay, but my hand-strokes were often late. And it ties into another area I'm trying to improve: hearing the bells and feeling my place in them.
You can't rely on "ropesight" in the same way, i.e. seeing which bell goes before you and pulling off right after — if the light treble bell is in 11th place, you'll likely have to pull the rope first to ring after it. At that church for example, the treble weighs ~273kg, and the tenor weighs ~1,363kg...
Until next Sunday!
- Nick