Once you can strike call-changes accurately, you are ready to try your hand at ‘Method’ change ringing.

The first ‘method’ to learn is Plain Hunt. In this, you change the position of your bell in the ringing order every handstroke and every backstroke.

Suppose you are ringing the Treble in rounds. You are leading, so you are the first bell to ring at each handstroke, and at each backstroke. Each time all the bells ring once this is called a Row (to rhyme with toe — hopefully it won’t rhyme with now!)

We use the notation 123456 to indicate six bells ringing a row in the order of rounds, with the treble (no 1 bell) leading and the tenor (no 6 bell) lying or covering.

The treble could move one place in the order, to produce the row 213456. Note that for the treble to move away from the lead, the no 2 bell has to move down to lead… more (Introducing Plain Hunt).

Blue Lines

A ‘Blue Line’ in ringing can be likened to a child’s ‘Dot-to-dot’ puzzle picture book and it works in much the same way to produce a picture of what we ring. Only now we are joining figures, not dots. If you understand a blue line you can learn a method from it, without need for a lot of words… more (Blue Lines For Beginners)

If you would like more help then the following articles are also useful:

• Principles of Change Ringing – provided by John Heaton
• Plain Hunt Minimus (4) & Doubles (5)
• Plain Hunt Doubles (5) – Pretty Coloured Lines!
• Plain Hunt – How to Learn It
• Plain Hunt – Understanding the Jargon! (plus worksheet)
• Plain Hunt – Moving on from numbers
• Plain Hunt – Worksheet
• Plain Hunt – Quiz