Peal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For a complete set of bells, see peal of bells.
A peal is a term used in change ringing to describe the process of ringing a certain number of combinations, or permutations in the order of the bells, without repetition of any of the changes. Peals usually consist of between 5000-5280 changes, or permutations, and can take anywhere from one and a half to over four hours to ring, depending on the weight of the bells, and whether handbells or tower bells are being rung. They are considered to be both a physical and a mental challenge, in that concentration has to be maintained for a long period of time, and each individual ringer has to ring their bell without a break.
Composition of peals is a specialist and highly complicated area of change ringing, as it involves having to constantly ensure throughout the process that no changes are repeated, while aiming to achieve the correct length.
Another area of peal ringing is that of long length peals. These involve ringing for far longer than an ordinary peal, up to 17 hours. The difficulties of ringing ordinary peals are magnified in these performances, as are the difficulties of composing them. One challenge to ringers is to ring 'the extent', which on eight bells is 40320 changes. The last time this was rung on tower bells, it took 17 hours.
In addition to ordinary peals, ringers often ring quarter peals, which are a quarter of the length of a full peal, making them far easier to ring.
[edit] External links
- Central Council decisions — scroll down the page to see the council's definition of a peal
