2025-07-31T08:06:43Z

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===[https://complib.org/method/17060 ''Yorkshire Surprise Major'']===

So what about Yorkshire? Another staple in the current larder and a method learned first or second by the vast majority of those who set out to ring Surprise Major.

Unlike with Cambridge, the jury did not spend much time deliberating on the merits of Yorkshire. In fact there was hardly a bad word said about it.

Arguments for Yorkshire’s inclusion based on the selection criteria are:

• It introduces a different Cambridge above method (i.e. Cambridge above the treble) with the same lead end order and so is a relatively easy way of being able to know another method. Ringers do find it quite difficult at first to even ring two methods in spliced so adding an easy one is beneficial.

• Yorkshire becomes a very useful method on higher numbers for inexperienced bands so getting to know it on eight is helpful

• Reasonably musical plain course which extends well to higher numbers

• Virtually every other ringer who knows at least two Surprise Major method knows it so it is very accessible

• Relatively easy to learn

One consultee who is relatively new to learning Surprise Major methods put it like this: “really useful, because so many other things are Yorkshire-y in one way or another. It teaches lots of transferrable skills, and you're probably going to get a rock-steady band to ring round you.” Which is in fact as much an argument for learning it first not second! Short Yorkshire places (dodge place place dodge) are very common in other methods whereas long Cambridge places are rare.

The point about Yorkshire being useful on higher numbers for inexperienced bands is because bells stay in coursing order below and above the treble in Yorkshire whereas they don’t in Cambridge. This may not seem very important or even noticeable on 8, but it does become more noticeable the more bells you ring on – keeping course bells together above and below the treble makes the method easier to ring and easier to conduct.

As this week’s article is relatively short, I would like to say something about the way the line of Cambridge last week and line of Yorkshire this week have been presented. When David Marshall produced his ‘Criblines’ books in the early 1980s, he only showed Surprise Major lines going to the pivot, and indicated the place bells either going up or down the line. So Cambridge and Yorkshire lines start at 2nds place bell and are drawn until the pivot point half way through 3rds place bell. This is the point of reflective symmetry of the line. 2nds 6ths 7ths and 3rds place bells are indicated as going down the line, while 4ths 8ths and 5ths go up. Being able to learn only half of the complete line and then reverse it is a very useful skill, which gets easier with practice.

Even if you cannot do the reversal of the line in your head, knowing the pairs of place bells (5ths is the opposite of 2nds, 8ths is the opposite of 6ths) is really helpful.

I am proposing therefore that Cambridge and Yorkshire retain their places in the larder. Next week I will look at the first method proposed for Project Pickled Egg which is not in the current Standard 8 – a visit to the deli counter!

==Next Chapter==

[[Project Pickled Egg - Part 6 | Project Pickled Egg - Part 6 - Cornwall]]

==References==
* [https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/issues/2018/196 ''The Ringing World''], No 5575, 2 March 2018, pg 196.

Project Pickled Egg - Cambridge

2025-07-31T08:05:26Z

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===[https://complib.org/method/16694 ''Cambridge Surprise Major'']===

The place of Cambridge Major in Project Pickled Egg has been the most hotly debated of all. Here are some of the comments that indicate the opposing views and strength of feeling:

''“The pressure is building for dropping Cambridge. If you apply the selection criteria for methods, which no one disagrees with, Cambridge doesn't score many points!”

''“Ha! When the *best* thing you can say about Cambridge is “its falseness isn’t too awful” you know you’re on shaky ground.”

''“Has to be in. Almost everyone goes via Cambridge Minor, so they want something as simple to learn from that starting point as possible.”

''“Cambridge only needs to stay if it can justify its inclusion, and I don't think it can. It is certainly too hard as a first method, and by the time you have included all the obvious methods, we are looking at it being the 6th or 7th method, by which point it doesn't offer anything new. If Cambridge stays in the new collection, then I think that Project Pickled Egg has failed in its objective.”

''“Today’s pub consensus was that for Pickled Egg to be taken seriously and adopted universally, Cambridge must stay.”

''“I understand all the arguments for dropping Cambridge, but my argument would be that it is a unique special method with implications for ringing on all numbers from 6 to 12, and on 8 it is part of the most iconic peal composition [Pitman’s 4] so I don’t think you can judge it simply as a method on 8.”''

So it is not a shoe in!

Arguments for Cambridge’s inclusion based on the selection criteria are:

• It is likely to be the first Surprise Minor method learned so the basic structure, or at least elements thereof, will be known

• It teaches about extension because learners will know the Minor, and it extends well on higher numbers (but do you care at this stage?)

• It has a structure which provides many building blocks for other methods (same could be said of Yorkshire though if that came first)

• Every other ringer who knows at least one Surprise Major method knows it

There are as many arguments for its exclusion though. It is not particularly musical in the plain course. In terms of extension, Yorkshire has enough Cambridge Minor features to become a logical pathway, and it is easier to ring and keep right. It does have a clear structure but then so do other methods. The falseness is limiting, which means good compositions are more difficult to find.

Some of the perceived benefits of starting with Cambridge in the minds of more experienced ringers (e.g. easy extension from Minor) are not necessarily what is being experienced at the coal face. Although it has reassuring familiarity if you know Cambridge Minor, the long places are much more difficult to ring than short Yorkshire places, particularly in 56.

It has been forcefully argued that Cambridge is just not the best starting point, either as a Surprise Major method or indeed as a Surprise Minor method. Whose idea was it to learn Cambridge Minor first anyway? It’s not the easiest Treble Dodging Minor method – there are plenty of candidates for that crown. If for instance you learned Kent and then Norwich, your perspective on what made an easy first Surprise Major method would be very different. Cambridge Minor is a huge hurdle to leap, and Cambridge Major is a leap again.

However at the moment it will be very difficult for anyone’s first step in Surprise Major not to be Cambridge or Yorkshire simply because of available opportunity. It is all very well suggesting a different pathway, but until a generation of ringers come through who know something better, Cambridge is likely to stay, although it may fade in time. Going back to the larder analogy, we may have to continue to bake some cakes with ingredients in the larder until we have finished them, and replaced them with fresh.

On balance then, omitting Cambridge from a set of core methods is too big a leap from the status quo to make, and for Project Pickled Egg to succeed it needs to stay. The merits of starting the Surprise Major journey with something different, and from somewhere different, will however be explored in due course.

==Next Chapter==

[[Project Pickled Egg - Part 5 | Project Pickled Egg - Part 5 - Yorkshire]]

==References==
* [https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/issues/2018/176 ''The Ringing World''], No 5574, 23 February 2018, pg 176.

Project Pickled Egg - Part 3

2025-07-31T08:04:42Z

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__NOTOC__
In this the 3rd article about Project Pickled Egg, I am going to introduce some criteria for selection of methods to go in this new core group. As I said last week, the current Standard 8 seem to have been largely self-selecting, with CYSL and B being commonly rung pre-war, and then Lincolnshire, Rutland and Pudsey added later.

The 1941 Ringing World discussion I referred to discussed the desirable qualities of a standard method. With the techniques of composition being less well developed, the existence of just a ‘single good peal’ was considered important, as well as methods being musical. At that time, a method was generally considered to be musical if it kept coursing bells together as tightly as possible.

== Core principles ==

The whole point of Project Pickled Egg is that it would be a set of core methods teaching ringers how to ring Surprise Major in a progressive way, with each additional method building on what has come before, and clear reasoning for why it adds value. The methods should also form satisfying groups to be rung together.

I should say at this point who has been collaborating on this. The major contributions from the start have come from Don Morrison, Graham John, Alan Reading, Philip Earis and David Hull. More recently the opinions of Graham Nabb, AJ Barnfield, Graham Bradshaw and Iain Anderson have been added into the mix. There have been some interesting debates, and one in particular that has divided opinion. But more of that later!

The proposal is that considerations for adding a method to the larder are:

● '''It should be musical in the plain course'''

All the methods will get rung as plain courses or short courses, as the Standard 8 are now. All things being equal, the core method should be musical in the plain course.

● '''It should introduce a useful new skill, technique or concept, and hence be progressive'''

“You are learning this one next because…”. Also the step from one method to the next should not be too great.

● '''It should not have limiting falseness'''

The core methods should give freedom for composers to produce decent quarter peal and peal compositions in the method with tenors together.

● '''Some familiarity is helpful'''

New Surprise Major ringers will not get experience in the core methods if no one else knows them. There is therefore benefit in selecting a least some methods that are generally known.

== Other considerations ==

There were other potential aspects of core methods that were considered, as follows:

'''1. Extension'''

Does it matter whether the core methods extend to higher numbers at all? The current Standard 8 extend to a degree, although only the extensions of Cambridge, Yorkshire, London and Bristol have become standard methods on 10 and 12. Apart from Chris Kippin’s one-part compositions, composers haven’t really found a need to produce compositions of 8 Spliced Royal, nor is there much demand for them. The most popular composition of spliced on 12 now doesn’t have any of the extended Standard 8 in at all.

It is therefore probably not necessary to consider the extendability, whilst recognising that formulaic ‘above’ works will get used on higher number with ‘below’ works which are optimised for the number of bells being rung. The Surprise Royal market is a relatively small one, and once bands get capable of ringing C Y L and B, they probably don’t need to rely on just extending methods they already know.

'''2. Surprise, Delight, Treble Dodging, Irregular'''

On numbers of bells above six, the distinction between Surprise and Delight is really only of academic interest - it makes no practical difference. In the 1941 correspondence, there is reference to how the term ‘Surprise’ seemed to have been adopted as a catch-all term for any method that was not a Delight or an Exercise! Yet there is an illogical obsession with Surprise. Few composers have dared mix Surprise and Delight, and thus subject their composition to the apparent indignity of being described as ‘Spliced Treble Dodging’.

It is therefore suggested that a method will be considered for the core group irrespective of its nature, and the inclusion of at least one Delight method would be a positive force.

There was less appetite for introducing irregular methods, principally as there didn’t seem to be any inherent advantage of an irregular method over ones with Plain Bob lead ends. However as I write, the core methods are still being considered so it may yet happen.

'''3. Optimisation for spliced composition'''

In defining a set of core methods in this way, aimed at achieving the stated aims, it is not likely that the absolute best set of methods for splicing together in all styles of composition will result. However provided that producing touches and compositions of the methods in themselves and together is not overly difficult, that characteristic was considered less important than finding the best methods to further the aim.

'''4. Short touches of spliced'''

How important is it that relatively straightforward touches of spliced are possible from the methods as they are learned in order? The Standard 8 gives a very easy touch of spliced including all eight in eight leads, although this was almost certainly more by luck than design.

It would be nice if there were good short ‘practice night’ touches in the methods, oozing with music and interest, but to what extent should this drive the method choice rather than be a consequence? David Pipe’s classic cyclic Spliced Maximus oozes all over the place, but includes ‘designer methods’ not intended to be rung singly.

'''5. Tower bells and handbells'''

Graham John raised the early question of whether the core methods would be the same on tower bells and handbells. Lincolnshire may not add value on tower bells to methods that are likely to have gone before, e.g. Cambridge and Yorkshire, but is more useful on handbells.

Whilst not following that train of thought too much, there is scope for having groups of methods branching off the core which adapt better for handbell bands.

== So what are the proposed core methods? ==

Over the next few weeks, maybe after seeing what correspondence flows from these first three articles, the proposed core methods will be introduced one or two at a time. The reasons for inclusion will be presented, but also in some cases the reasons why maybe there is no place for an old favourite.

''Homework: take the current Standard 8, put them in a logical order of learning, or the order in which you learned them, and then apply the selection criteria suggested above. How many stay in your larder?''

==Next Chapter==

[[Project Pickled Egg - Part 4 | Project Pickled Egg - Part 4 - Cambridge]]

==References==
* [https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/issues/2018/102 ''The Ringing World''], No 5571, 2 February 2018, pg 102.