Glossary of ringing terms – T

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Words or phrases underlined are defined within the glossary. Where it assists with clarity, a definition is annotated to indicate a part of speech. (n) = noun, (vb) = verb, (adj) = adjective, (adv) = adverb. Section references refer to sections within The Tower Handbook.

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T: Twelve, the symbol used to represent twelfth, eg rounds on twelve is 1234567890ET.
Tail end: The end of the bell rope. The tail end is normally doubled in thickness by tucking it back into itself for a length of a few feet
Tail stroke: Alternative name for back stroke.
Take in (rope): Move the grip up the rope to reduce its effective length
Take off (lead): Turn from lead. Eg 'take third off lead' = lead directly after third has led.
Tapping changes: (One person) ringing changes on suspended handbells by striking them with a small hammer, pencil, etc.
TB: Treble Bob
Technical adviser: Ringing society officer who provides technical advice to towers within an area. A volunteers usually unqualified but often with significant experience of bells and fittings
Ten: A ring of ten bells. eg 'They used to be a ten'.
Tenor: The bell with the lowest note (normally the heaviest) in a ring. While ringing fewer bells than the whole ring, with the tenor not included, it is common to refer to the heaviest bell ringing as the tenor.
Tenors: The pair of bells with the lowest notes. On higher numbers may refer to more than two bells.
Tenors together: A class of composition where the tenors are always coursing, (in contrast to split tenors).
Tenor box: A box, often larger than a normal box, and sometimes permanently fixed to the floor for the ringer of a (heavy) tenor to stand on. Heavy bells have larger wheels, and so the length of rope between tail end and sally is longer. Ringing from a large box allows this to hang freely without coiling on the floor.
Tenor plummet: A method in which the Tenor hunts up and then moves from last place to first place in one go. This effectively combines all the up dodges in one and the other bells only do down dodges, (they all move up one place as the Tenor jumps to the front). Only practical on handbells. Not accepted by CC.
Test piece: The touch rung and marked at a striking competition. The test piece is fixed for all teams or chosen by the individual team. The length may be specified (eg 240 for six bell competitions) or chosen by the band within limits (eg between 210 and 252 for eight bell competitions).
That's all: Alternative for 'this is all'.
The Slow: Work on or near the front for an extended period, eg in Stedman,Kent or Oxford TB. Hence being 'in the slow'.
The snap: The row containing the point lead of the hunt bell's up or down dodge at the front in a Treble Dodging method, used to specify a non standard start or finish of a touch, eg 'The touch comes round at the snap'.
This is all: Call just before rounds occurs during a touch to indicatechanges are to stop.
Thirds: Historic name for Queens, which has two sequences descending in musical thirds. Eg '60 on Thirds is a call change sequence based on Queens.
Three lead course: (In compositions of Grandsire Triples) a block of three leads with two calls and one plain lead.
Three leads: A short touch three leads long, of a method, eg Grandsire Triples, Bristol, Kent, that produces a three lead touch with a bob every lead.
Tie bolt: A long bolt used to hold parts of a (wooden) bell frame together.
Tied bell: A bell with the clapper fixed to prevent it striking when the bell is swung. Used to enable silent practice,
Tied practice: A practice with one or more tied bells.
Tierce: One of the tones within the bell sound, a musical minor third above the fundamental. See tuning
Ting tang: (1) A Sanctus bell.
(2) Alternative name for Seage's apparatus.
Tintinnalogia: The first known textbook dedicated to change ringing. Published by Stedman in 1668, (but now known to be written by Richard Duckworth).
Title: All methods have a title by which they are identified. It is made up of its name, type, class and stage.
Tittums: A row with small and large bells interleaved in descending order. ie 142536, 15263748, etc. The name is onomatopoeic, since the alternation of high and low notes can be described as 'ti-tum-ti-tum-ti-tum....'. Popular in call changes. 47362518 is sometimes known as reverse tittums.
Tittums position: Coursing orders where the back bells course in numerical order. eg 5678. This gives Tittums like rows near the course end (and often elsewhere as well). A course can thus be 'in the Tittums'. (More common when ringing higher stages of odd bell methods).
Toe strap: Leather strap fixed to the ringing chamber floor (or a fixed box) into which ringers used to place their feet to allow greater pulling. Now rarely used)
Toll: (1) Ring a single bell slowly by either chiming or ringing, especially to signify a death.
(2) Chime
Top end: The part of the rope from the sally and up onto the wheel.
Top ringing: The portion of a Devon style ringing performance when the bells are up. Devon performances include the rise and fall.
Touch: (1) An arrangement of calls to produce a particular number of changes in a method or principle.
(2) A piece of change ringing.
Tower: (1) (Literally) the tall part of a church housing the bells (regardless of whether it is surmounted by a steeple).
(2) (Colloquially) The band at a church, ie the regular ringers.
Tower bell: A bell designed for tower use, ie for public audibility.
Tower captain: The usual name for the person in charge of a band of ringers. The tower captain normally delegates some aspects of running the tower to other officers, eg secretary, steeple keeper.
Tower grab: Colloquial term for an event where the major objective is to ring at (a large number of) different towers.
Tower sway: (or tower oscillation) Towers move slightly under the force of the wind and the reactive force of the swinging bells, but this is often too small to notice. The movement is more noticeable if the period of bell swing matches the natural oscillation frequency of the tower structure. Extreme tower sway can affect the way the bells go. The maximum lateral force of a swinging bell is about twice its weight (as it passes the frame high position), and the maximum vertical force about four times the weight (as it swings through the mouth down position).
Transpose (transposition): (1) Apply rules to obtain one row, lead head, lead end or coursing order from another. Transposition may be done in the head or on paper. Composers need to transpose (unless they have a computer to do it automatically for them), and many conductors transpose during a touch to enable them to check the correctness of the ringing.
(2) Rearrange the calls in a composition so that a different bell is observation.
(3) Superficial alteration of a composition to start at a different point in the cycle from the original, ie a rotation.
Treble: The bell with the highest note in a ring (normally but not always the lightest).
Treble bob: (1) (adj) Class of Treble dodging method that has no internal places made at any cross section or in which the hunt bell dodges in only one position. Typically the Treble dodges once in every position, up and down.
(2) (vb) Shortened form of 'treble bob hunt'.
Treble Dodging: (1) (adj) Class of method in which the hunt bell has a well-formed path, strikes more than two but the same number of blows in each position of the path within the lead, and makes only two places within the lead. and there are no internal places made at any cross sections, ie all other bells plain hunt at these changes. Treble Dodging methods include the classes: Surprise, Delight and Treble Bob.
(2) (vb) Treble bob hunting.
Treble bob hunt: Hunt with a dodge in every even pair of positions (12, 34, etc). See figure 15.2-1.
Treble dominated: A method whose structure includes the treble repeating the same work (eg hunting or treble dodging) every lead.
Treble jump: A class of methods in which the Treble moves more than one place between rows. The Treble dodges 1-2 up, 3-4 down, 5-6 up, etc, jumping two places to start and finish the 'wrong way' dodges. The other bells never move more than one place at a time. Not accepted by the CC.
Treble place: Class of symmetrical methods in which the Treble makes at least one place within the half lead, and the Treble has the same total number of blows in each position of the path within the lead
Trebles, (The): The small bells.
Treble's going: Traditional form of words used by the treble ringer when the bell is raised to the balance and about to pull off. This gives the other ringers time take the weight of their bells and raise them to the balance for an orderly pull off.
Treble's gone: Traditional form of words used by the treble ringer when the bell has just been pulled off.
Trip: Mistake, in change ringing.
Triple change: Change in which three pairs of bells exchange places.
Triple clappering: The clapper bounces back and forth across the bell, instead of sounding a single blow on each stroke. Rare
Triple dodge: Three consecutive dodges, performed by the same two bells. See figure 15.2-3.
Triples: The stage name for methods with seven working bells
True touch: (1) A touch (less than an extent) with no row repeated; (2) A touch (longer than an extent) that meets certain constraints on repetition of rows, for example in a multi-extent block each row occurs the same number of times
True changes: A term describing a linked collection of true rows
Tuck: (vb) Pass the tail end of the rope through itself (normally several times) to shorten it to the required length and to thicken it so it is easier to grip.
(n) A point at which the rope passes through itself when tucked up.
Truth: A property of a collection of rows, notably a touch, related to repetition. See
Tucked up: (1) A bell hung so that the line of the axis about which it pivots passes through the bell.
(2) A rope with tucks in the tail end.
Tuffing: (or tufting) The woollen threads inserted into the rope to produce the sally.
Tuning: The process of adjusting the frequencies of the different components in the bell sound so they blend together, or altering the overall note to fit in with other bells in the ring. Metal is carefully removed from different parts of the bell to raise or lower the more significant frequencies (partials) generated when it is struck. In conventional modern Simpson tuning five notes are tuned: the fundamental; the hum note an octave below (a major seventh in some older bells); the nominal an octave above; the quint (a fifth) and tierce (minor third). The quint and tierce are in the octave between the fundamental and the nominal. Handbells have no sound bow and only two notes are tuned: the fundamental and a twelfth above that (ie three times the frequency).
Turn: (1) Take the place of, especially to lead. eg 'turn 4th from lead', 'turn me', 'treble turns you', 'turn tenor from behind'.
(2) see whole turn and half turn
Turn in: Ring a tenor as a working bell, not just covering.
Turning course: A course in a composition containing calls that rearrange the back bells, eg from the tittums position to the handstroke position. Normally used with blocks of simpler courses between them.
Twelve: A ring of twelve bells. eg 'They are a nice twelve'
Twiddle pins: clapper adjusters.
Twin bob: A composition of Stedman consisting of only pairs of calls in adjacentsixes. The standard calling positions for twin bobs are S, L, H,Q.
Twin hunt: A method (eg Grandsire) with two bells hunting in the plain course. The treble always hunts, but the other hunt bell is normally affected by a call that puts it 'out of the hunt' and another bell 'into the hunt'.
Two in hand: The normal way to ring handbells, one in each hand.
Type: Methods are divided into types, based on their structure: hunters, principles, differentials, or differential hunters. Method types are defined in the Framework for Method Ringing

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