sweasel.com

With all due respect to the handbell ringers in Her Stoatliness’s picture, it was pretty tame stuff compared with the mesmerising magic that is change ringing on handbells.

This is a bit of a guilty secret of mine. No, not the ringing (that would take far too much discipline) but the hypnotic, meditative sound of it when it is well done.

For those of a mathematical bent (and you might need to be) or who just like to drift away, it is certainly something… different.

http://www.changeringing.co.uk/handbells.htm

Oi! Weezul?

I killed your thread.

“Land of Hope & Glory.”
Reminds me: isn’t the UK in the midst of the BBC Proms at the current period?

It is but for some reason the BBC has decided that ‘classical’ music is no longer wanted.

It’ll be banjos next, you mark my words.

Nonsense. Banjos will never not be wanted.

“Classical music” might upset some who want a more Eastern, camel-jockey style of auditory output. Never can tell, truly, what’s in the minds of the “elites.”

“Change Ringing”?

Don’t have time to watch the video, but I know it’s pretty popular here in the States too; at Christmastime you’ll find a Santa change ringing on almost every corner.

As for the BBC, don’t be too sure that banjo playing won’t go away naturally as it’s going to be pretty hard to play a banjo in a habib thingy.

My sister is part of a handbell choir, they start practicing in October for a couple of Christmas concerts. It is actually pretty fun to watch and listen, for about 3-4 songs and then not so much. I can’t imagine sitting through the rehearsals.

As long as the Baptist church lives, bell-ringing will live. I am not a Baptist myself, but if that was the only church in town, I would certainly go there; they are my cousins. Change ringing is beautiful, and it is indeed—mesmerizing. Bells are quite popular—not surprising—in Christian schools here in the U.S.

Didn’t Dorothy L. Sayers write a book where bell-ringing is featured? I can’t remember the title.(Now I have a good excuse to go back and read all of Sayers again.)

English Bell-ringing, Rounds and Changes (Illustrated)
YT – The Craft of Bellringing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLMiK-TMyPI

After St. Martin’ s day the berries get much sweeter. The wrinkled fruit has higher sugar content.
The bloke on the right must be swatting them off with the folded Guardian.

And now a rousing rendition of Lawrence Welk’ s golden standards from the Bluehairs and Bifocals!

@uncle badger.
I had to stop listening to the clips because Zippy the emergency backup Chihuahua (in event of emergency inflate to 120 lbs) started spinning in air while she barked the Lord’s Prayer backwards.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IzzjFVF25IQ

(And the cat let me know what she thought of the YouTube clip too).

Too bad, I’m with you, it mesmerized.

Deborah HH: That would be The Nine Tailors

Thank you, Unk Badger, for the link to the Change Ringing bells. What a wonderful, zen-like sound! I hope to include some of it into my own compositions…

@Can’t Hark My Cry—thank you. Going now to get it for my Kindle.

Some more mesmerizing music: I am in love with this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMl0kxzf4YU

Uncle Badger: It’ll be banjos next, you mark my words.
S. Weasel: Nonsense. Banjos will never not be wanted.
Uncle Al: Kazoos, then. Or ocarinas if we’re lucky.

Accordions and Opera singers

It’s 107 F and I am melting. 🙁 Tonight it will be in the mid to high 80s. That’s ridiculous. 2 am and it will be 87 F. And tomorrow it will be worse. Oh, well. The poor people in Houston, et al, have it so much worse. 🙁 🙁

Huh! Fiftyish here and I have lit the wood burner.

In twenty years’ time if you want to ring church bells you’ll probably have to ask the local muezzin if you can borrow his minaret.