Extents in Treble Dodging Major Methods

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In late 1968 or early 1969, Rod Pipe composed a 40320 of Derwent Surprise Major. This was probably the first extent ever composed in a Treble Dodging Major method, and an article about its construction was published in the Ringing World, 1969, p5. The peal is made up of S-Blocks, which can between them produce a set of mutually true leads as the same pair of bells is kept dodging on the front.

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In the 1980s, Colin Wyld applied his problem-solving abilities to producing a 40320 of Yorkshire Surprise Major. How does it work? In the first half lead of Yorkshire, bells 1 and 2 are treble bobbing in parallel to each other up to back. By calling a half-lead single, the 2nd makes 6ths and treble bobs back down to the front, again in parallel to the treble. By repeating this pattern, a block is created in which the treble and 2nds place bell are always treble bobbing in parallel, and so creating a set of mutually true leads that can form an extent. A drawback of Colin's peal is that there are no plain leads at all.

 

On Wednesday 17th April 2013 (by coincidence, exactly 6 years ago at the time of writing!) I used a similar idea to produce my own 40320 in an unrung Delight method (probably the first 40320 to be composed in a Delight Major method.) The place notation is 56-56.1-7-1-2-3-4-3, 12a. The method is designed so that bells 1,2,3 treble bob in parallel in the first lead. B-Blocks can then be joined together, and 252 will make a true 40320 (so long as the pairs of bells are always kept the same way round. E.g: As you have 12345678 at backstroke, you can't have an in-course lead with bells 2,3 swapped over, such as 13254678.) My composition is an exact 5-part. It would be interesting to see how many plain leads could be added in to the composition.

 

Some intriguing 40320s of Spliced can be found on Ander Holroyd's site, including a cyclic 7-part in only four methods (the fewer the methods, the more difficult it can be to get the right changes.) One of the methods is Bristol S Major.

 

A. J. Cox has also produced an extent of Spliced Surprise Major in three methods. This can be found on his website in the long lengths section.

 

On the page about 40320s for Plain Major methods, you can read about the 21-part compositions that I produced for Bob Major and Oxenwood Bob Major. The part ends are the cyclic rotations of Rounds, Queens and Tittums - a plan that has also been used for 5040s of Stedman Triples. Not long composing these, I realised the plan could work for some Treble Dodging Major methods. As the 21 part ends are based on the 21 different pairs of inside bells, the plan works well for extents based on fixing pairs of bells in a position. My unnamed Delight method mentioned above is an example and I produced a 21-part 40320 for it. I seem to remember that I had focussed on keeping the number of singles as low as I could manage, but that the non-A parts would be less different to the A parts had more singles been used. I then came up with a far neater 21-part of Derwent Surprise Major - another method where pairs of bells can be fixed to build extents. This extent is pleasing, as the cyclic part ends come in a logical order (starting with 3456782), the alteration in every 1/3 occurs in the very first notational course of the part, the alteration itself is fairly small and covers only a few leads (making that part very similar to the standard parts), and the parts containing that alteration are nos. 7, 14 and 21 (which looks neat on paper.) As with 99% of my compositions, these were all done with pen and paper.