What's the point of ringing Little Bob? Surely it's similar enough to Plain Bob, but without as much scope as the treble never gets above 4ths place?

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The special feature for Little Bob is that the method's B-blocks are incredibly short, meaning that groups of similar course ends can be rung over and over again in quick succession.

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What I mean by this is that you can call BBB - three bobs in a row - and the touch comes round after only 24 changes. That's even shorter than a B-block of Bob Minor. In Little Bob Major you could adapt this touch by calling BBP x3, which produces three 1xxx5678 course ends in quick succession, and also double this touch with a single halfway through and at the end to get all six 1xxx5678 course ends in a touch that is only 144 changes long.

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And we can go further than this, as there are more options for variety within the B-block. So we could use singles to swap over bells 5,7 while the tenor is dodging 5-6 up, and then get all of the pretty sounding 1xxx7658 course ends in quick succession. We could ring all of the 7658 course ends first, then ring all of the 5678 course ends, or have each type of course end alternately, by swapping 5,7 in every course. Both possibilities are attractive.

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And there are plenty of other ideas we can harvest in the B-blocks that are not as close to Rounds. We could, for example, have alternating 6478 and 7468 course ends - a particularly pretty and attractive block. We could also have alternate 6578 and 7568 course ends.

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We don't always have to use B-blocks in which the tenor is at Home for the course ends. We can also use B-blocks when the tenor is at the positions Wrong and Middle. For example, we could have the 'course end' ending in 1xxx7486, where bells 4,6,7,8 are in their plain course positions, and then call SBP to swap over bells 4,6 and rotate bells 2,3,5 at the same time, so that we then have a fragment of a course where bells 4,6 are swapped over from their normal plain course positions. We can then call SBP again to swap 4,6 back over again and rotate 2,3,5 again, and then repeat the process again and again.

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At Christmas 2017 I finally put these ideas together to form a peal composition (though I had composed a similar - but inferior - peal that summer.) The peal is formed of an A Block which uses the split tenor B-blocks (such as the 7658s), followed by six tenor-together course ends, culminating in a CRU part end, which is the end of the A Block. The B Block (not to be confused with B-block!) is deliberately designed to contrast with this, being entirely tenors-together throughout, and without ever reaching a course end (only the Wrongs and Middles.) All of the 120 tenors-together courses are rung in the B Block. The peal ends with some 5678 course ends. For falseness reasons, the composition is rather fiddly and would be difficult to call. It isn't entirely formed from B-blocks - there are some P-blocks in there as well!

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5008 Little Bob Major

RBP

F   W   M   B   V   H

-               s      637254 |

        -   -         (327654)|

        -   -         (267354)|

    s   -   -         (627354)|

        -   -          237654 |

In                     362457 |A

In,V                s  63245  |

In,V                   32645  |

In,V                   26345  |

In,V                s  62345  |

In,V                   23645  |

-       s       s      437256

        -   -         (327456)

        -   -         (247356)

    s   -   -         (427356)

        -  (-)         237456

In                     342657

In,sV               -  342756

In,sV               s  432657

In,sV               -  432756

In,sV                  324657

In,sV               s  234756

In,V                s  324756

In,sV                  243657

In,sV               -  243756

In,sV               s  423657

In,sV               -  423756

In,sV                  234657

           2A          236547

-       s       s      537246

    ss  -   -         (327546)

        -   -         (257346)

    s                  357246

In                  s  532647

In,V                   32564

In,V                   25364

In,V                s  52364

In,V                   23564

In,V                   35264

        -   -         (56234)|

        -   4         (42563)|

        -   5         (52364)|

        -   -         (26354)|

        -   4         (43265)|

        -   5         (23564)|

        -   5         (53462)|

        -   -         (36452)|B

        -   5         (46253)|

        -   4         (32465)|

        -   -         (26435)|

        -   5         (46532)|

        -   4         (25463)|

        -   -         (56423)|

        -   5         (46325)|

        s   4         (35462)|

        -   5         (45263)     

          B           (45362)

        -   4       s  24356

In,V                   43256

In,V                   32456

In,V                s  23456

At (-) add: sB,H,In,H,In,H,s3rds.

Composed Christmas Eve 2017.

 

Soon afterwards I came up with the following quarter peal, to maximise the 748s:

 

1328 Little Bob Major

RBP

W   M   B

    2      63254

  In,V     32654 |

  In,V     26354 |A

s   -   - (62354)|

    -   -  25364 |

    B      63524

   3A      25634

    B      36524

   2A     (63254)

    -      23456

B is A, omitting the single.

Composed 3rd January 2018. 

   

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