Bellringing

Change ringing is a folk tradition going back to the 1600s that can be thought of as a “mathematical and musical team sport.” Instead of playing traditional melodies, change ringers work together to ring weaving patterns that never repeat themselves. Pieces of ringing are composed of rows in which each bell rings exactly once, and a band of ringers memorizes a pattern called a method that determines how each bell moves from one row to the next. Ringing in this style feels a bit like real-time team puzzle solving: it takes careful thought, group coordination and physical skill to get the bells to ring at exactly the right time.

The diagram shows one of the oldest methods, called Plain Bob Minor. The numbers represent individual bells; the red and blue lines trace the paths of bells 1 and 6, respectively. Each row represents the bells ringing once in that order, and the rows are rung one after the other. The red and blue lines show how the bells move earlier and later within the row, weaving together to form the full pattern.