Stuart Barton on Striking

• Stuart is a Miami ringer, by way of South Africa, England, and New York.
• While with the Trinity ringers, Stuart helped develop the Trinity Shield Striking Competition (YT video of 2018 competition, our guest is wearing plaid), North America's only.
• We discuss the competition, good striking, and how one integrates more striking practice and awareness into practices.
• Finally, we settle the matter of which North American tower scored the most peals in 2020.

Thank you for listening, friends.

Transcript

Matthew Austin  
from Kent School in Connecticut, I'm Matt Austin with Treble's Going. Today we talk with Stuart Barton of Miami about striking. 

Before we get there, though, I just want to point one thing out. In this episode, Stuart talks a little bit about the telos of change ringing, about the purpose for which we ring these bells. And as a lifelong liturgical musician, it certainly... it certainly resonated with me. That said, there's an episode of Fun With Bells--the other ringing podcast--that touches on that topic, too. It's Kathy's interview Of March 2020 with historian Gareth Davies, discussing the profession of bell ringing at Great St. Mary's in Cambridge through the centuries. I found it interesting to learn what his research has turned up about when ringing has been directed to which secular and which religious aims. In any case, Fun With Bells is excellent, Kathy does a great job interviewing interesting guests, and you should definitely check it out. I'll link Gareth Davies's episode in the show notes, and I hope you enjoy this episode of Treble's Going with Stuart Barton.

Stuart Barton: welcome to Treble's Going. Thanks for taking some time to talk with us today. 

Stuart Barton  
Well, thank you for inviting me. 

Matthew Austin  
So you're down in Florida. Now you're down in Miami. But you are not a North American native ringer, correct? 

Stuart Barton
That's correct and I'm sure anyone who's met me or heard my accent will recognize that. I was born in the UK but I was brought up in South Africa.

Matthew Austin
And how did that happen? How'd that come about? 

Stuart Barton  
Well, my father is a metallurgist, a scientist. And he took a job when I was very young in South Africa for the South African National steelworks. So we moved out to South Africa in 1976, when I was just three years old. And I think the deal was, they moved to South Africa for something like two or three years and kind of made that commitment. But they liked it so much, they ended up staying for more like 20. Then after they left and went back to retire in the UK, I stayed on for a couple more years and completed my first university degree out there. 

Matthew Austin
So you were down in South Africa through university, but then back up to the UK for graduate work. 

Stuart Barton
Yeah, that's right. I went I went back to the UK to initially complete an MBA and then was recruited from that school to a bank in London. So I ended up staying on in London for several years. And it was that bank that then transferred me to New York. And that was back in 2004. And then I've lived in the US on and off since then, with some some breaks in Hong Kong and Denmark and Norway.

Matthew Austin  
So now, when does ringing come into that? I know that there is ringing in South Africa, but I don't have a great sense of it. Can you tell us a little bit about ringing down there? And is that something that was part of your family background or that you stumbled across in a church?

Stuart Barton  
When we were down there, there were, I believe, five peals of bells already installed. There were two in Cape Town. There were two in Durban. And there was one in Grahamstown. There was nothing in the Johannesburg region, which is the main business center and was the area that my parents were living in. And in the 80s, there was quite a large immigration to South Africa, particularly Johannesburg, by Brits who were taking jobs for large companies down there. A big growing economy at the time, and my parents and a couple of others that had been ringers in the in the UK decided they would they would found a society--the Transvaal Society of Church Bell Ringers--with the objective of raising money and installing bells in Johannesburg, which they did and I think those bells were installed in 1980. They're a very light peal--four and a half hundredweight peal of eight--in St. George's Park town and that sort of was the center of the ringing community in the in the Transvaal-Johannesburg area. It grew and I think by the late 80s, which might have been the peak of it, they had an eight-spliced major band, probably had 20 ringers, you know ranging from ringers who'd been accomplished maximus ringers in in the UK right down to people who were taught locally... So I was a child then but was part of a family group and many of the kids of UK ringers were taught out there. So I started ringing I guess, I was maybe nine or 10 years old, and rang my first peal in Johannesburg, I think I was 12. And I think I rang perhaps my first 25 peals in in South Africa before going back to the UK and continuing there.

Matthew Austin  
Right, I was gonna ask whether you were able to continue as you were getting into your your early career years, or was there a hiatus there?

Stuart Barton  
Yeah, well, I first moved down to Cape Town for my undergraduate degree. And I was tower captain at the cathedral in Cape Town. And that's a lovely peal of 10 bells. So there was some interesting ringing, although they were somewhat short of ringers in Cape Town. But then once I moved back to the UK, the opportunities really stepped up, we were living in Surrey near Guilford--Guildford cathedral's got a magnificent peal of 12, and a very good band. So I'd go along with my dad, I think it was on Tuesday evenings, and I was introduced to 12-bell ringing there. But then of course, living in that area, there's probably 20 practices a week within 15 minutes' drive of where you live. So you're in the situation where you can kind of go along to a new practice every night of the week and ring a peal or two on the weekends. And so it's almost endless, the opportunity. So I had a really good one or two years, in Surrey, ringing with them and probably learned a lot more ringing there than I had in South Africa just because of the sort of limited scope out there.

Matthew Austin  
And then you said you came over to New York in 2004, I believe. And if I'm doing my math right, that puts it a couple years before the bells come into Trinity. Were you part of a push to get bells installed there? Or are you just the beneficiary of great timing?

Stuart Barton  
Oh, I was very much the beneficiary. I had actually... I guess bellringing had taken a little bit of a backseat to my career. So bellringing wasn't too high in my priority list at the time, and I hadn't hadn't seeked out bellringers in the US initially. So I did meet the ringers once the bells have been installed, and I did ring on them. But I think they were installed in 2007? But then I almost immediately left to Hong Kong, where of course there are no bells. And again, I moved due to my career. So I kind of again, went back to doing very little ringing for some years. So I really got involved with the New York ringers when I returned to New York again in 2014. And rang with them through to moving to Miami two years ago.

Matthew Austin  
Okay. And that's got to be- I'm trying to think back to when we would have first met and it's got to be around then when you came back to New York, because that's about when I would have started taking students afield, taking them away from Kent and getting them up to Smith or down to New York. So-

Stuart Barton  
Yeah, that's probably right. You know, I remember joining, and Tim have done a fantastic job of building up the band. He developed the backbone of a 12-bell band with his 12-bell weekends.

Matthew Austin  
And that's Tim Barnes. 

Stuart Barton  
That's, that's right. Yes. Tim Barnes, eah. So the band was, was actually very strong when I when I joined it, and that was a fantastic opportunity to learn new things. And, you know, while while I was there, the band, it gained and lost people. But it always maintained sort of a backbone of 12-bell ringers, which I'm sure was the objective and with a few additions from DC or from from Boston, we would be able to get 12-bell peals and quarter peals and relatively frequently. So it was a very, very nice time to be there.

Matthew Austin  
Well, certainly at that time, I was nowhere near competent enough to understand that level of ringing, but it was it was also just an extremely welcoming place and full of wonderful people who were who were very good at teaching young ringers. And I'm counting both myself and my high schoolersin with that. Because anytime we would come down, and of course, it helps to have an organization that's large enough to have beginners nights. But you know, we'd come down on I think, a Monday night or something and spend two hours with people correcting kids' flaws and getting them into things that we couldn't manage as a band ourselves. Your your whole group was always very welcoming. And that's something that's always stuck with me over the years.

Stuart Barton  
No, I agree with that. And it was it was something I enjoyed working toward, and that was the sort of social side of the of the band and social side ringing. I think it's it's it's sometimes forgotten that so much of bell ringing in the UK, it really boils down social groups that that effectively have something in common and that's this bell ringing. And it's not just about ringing some new complicated method that you've learnt and you want to test yourself on. It should fundamentally be about some sort of social event where people really enjoy being around each other and then take those relationship outside of just ringing. And I think New York had a very good balance of that. Tim Barnes and I, we pushed the sort of English concept of the of the pub, following all bell ringing events and and I think people enjoyed that. Towards the end of being able to have access to Trinity bells when we were, you know, the Sunday morning ringing for the service turned into Sunday morning ringing plus one quarter peal, then plus two, then plus three and, and then it was three quarter peals plus three hours in the pub, you know, etc, etc. So it turned into sort of an entire Sunday's event, I think. I think people enjoyed that.

Matthew Austin  
Well, we certainly can't wait until we're able to get back into towers and I hope to bring kids down and be a part of getting that all going again.

Stuart Barton  
Yes. And of course I mean, Trinity was rather unfortunate in in the way all this has been timed in that they did the renovation of the bells, the year before Coronavirus closed the tower and in fact I think it was within a month of the planned reopening that it had to effectively close for for Corona. So it was it's been really unfortunate that after 18 months of of renovation, they've now gone through another year of Coronavirus restrictions, so particularly poorly timed for Trinity.

Matthew Austin  
However, just before that, the Trinity shield striking competition came onto the scene and that, am I remembering correctly? The first year of that was maybe 2017? 2018?

Stuart Barton  
I think it was it was 18. I think we did we did at 18 at Trinity 19 and DC. And then 20 had to be canceled.

Matthew Austin  
Can you tell us a little bit about how that got started and what the idea is behind that?

Stuart Barton  
Yeah, the idea there was that I had noted when I'd come back to ring in the states that there was a there's a significant focus on new method ringing, trying to push levels of complexity, and perhaps less focus on striking: not as much focus as you might find in other places in the world, particularly in the UK. So I thought as an initiative to try and get people to think about striking perhaps we'd run a competition, but in line with my idea of all these things must be fundamentally socially focused. I also thought it was a fantastic opportunity to try and bring groups from different towers, who may or may not have met each other before, together in order to try and strengthen the network we had across the United States of ringers. So that was the fundamental idea. We decided to to go with something that would be most accessible or be accessible to most so either six or eight bell competitions or both as we as we went with in the end. And you know, I think they were they were successful. I think if I'm right, we would have... must have been fiftyish people join us, five or six teams. So yeah, I think the idea, although some people took it seriously in terms of "it was a competition that needed to be needed to be won by by the best striking group," I think most recognized it as being an opportunity to meet fellow ringers and learn from from others and things like that. It was also a great opportunity to bring judges--and we'd hoped potentially even bands in the future--from the UK. So the first year, we asked Dave Bassford from London to judge for us, and he obliged and did a very good job for us. And then the second year we we had Mark Regan from from Worcester with the idea being: mix and match people from different parts of England. So to come out and meet all these American ringers and help them with their striking, comment on their striking et cetera. But perhaps more importantly, to give them the opportunity to kind of grow networks with influential ringers in different parts of England. So in that case, it was London and Worcester and the hope is that Simon Linford will do the next one and he's in Birmingham and I think that's worked in giving us ringers sort of a new contact and somebody that they can work through if they're ever in the UK or need to make further contacts.

Matthew Austin  
Now, I should have backed it up a little bit and started even more fundamentally: how would you describe striking? How would you define striking for people and good striking versus bad striking and how a judge evaluates that by ear versus how a computer evaluates it...w What is good striking?

Stuart Barton  
Well, I think some people might just say you'd know it when you when you when you heard it, but of course that's silly to say-

Matthew Austin  
Which is which I think is true. And the challenge that at least I have in my tower is that I can't provide that for my students. I can't bring them in, we don't have a steady enough, solid enough band that provides them the example. Now, of course, we can pull up YouTube videos and get recordings of things, but being able to see it.... I would assume that I'm not alone in North America, in knowing what better striking is than we are able to achieve, but not being able to demonstrate it.

Stuart Barton  
Yeah, that's, that's that's probably true. And I mean, more seriously, I think that the answer to your question is really: the maintenance of a rhythmical change, even when you have the bells changing position in the change. And, you know, it seems like it should be very easy, but of course, it isn't. And good striking, even in rounds, can be can be sometimes difficult to achieve. I think some bell ringers are taught a lot more about ropesight than they are about listening. And I think that was perhaps noticeable in the US more than in some parts of the UK. But, you know, it really comes down to listening to what good ringing sounds like and striving for that. And as I said, it's a nice, evenly spaced change that stays of similar length through time. And I think by having these competitions, and having these judges come out and point out what they thought the teams are doing well, not doing badly, was very useful. And I think those of those of us who are out there at the judging, at the prize-giving ceremonies, listening to David, and Mark, give us their their opinions... I think we all took away valuable information from that. And and I think striking has improved in the US because of that.

Matthew Austin  
Yeah, I definitely- You know, Dave's words from the 2018 competition stick with me. And of course, those kids have moved on, but it's, you know, it's informed my instruction since then. And hopefully the next time we get down to one, you'll see an improved version of that band. 

Stuart Barton  
And of course we were, I think everybody was super impressed by how the Kent students did- 

Matthew Austin  
You know, I should give people some context to it. I mean, our striking by any standard was abysmal. Some of those students had never rung on eight before stepping into that competition. You know it was, I think, was it Plain Bob triples that year, maybe for us?

Stuart Barton  
Yeah, that sounds right. And I remember we did put in, I think, two randomly chosen members to make it up to eight for you. But certainly, there were people in that band who had never, never rung changes on seven. And you know, in the end, it came around and it was maybe noticeably not not fantastic striking but you know, it achieved a lot of objectives and and, you know, relative to perhaps what people had expected it worked out very well. So we were we were super happy that you guys could make it and I remember it was touch and go that you were gonna make it. I think we had a snowstorm, was it the morning-

Matthew Austin
Yeah, there was a massive snowstorm. 

Stuart Barton
And you were having to come down in a van and was wondering whether you'd be able to make it but you did. And we were super happy you did.

Matthew Austin  
We did. And I don't know whether you know, but we actually last minute switched to taking the train down which the school sprang for just thinking, "you know what, you can still do this thing. But let's let's not put it in a teacher's hands to drive these kids down during an 18-inch snowstorm" or whatever it was that night. Which was wonderful, because that gave me an extra two hours to actually learn the method and the calls also.

Stuart Barton  
Fantastic. And I think the travel is an interesting point here. What I noticed with US ringers: it is similar in many ways to South African ringing. The towers are so far apart that you really have to have a good excuse to go along to another tower: some sort of event that would would draw people to the other tower for a special practice or a striking competition. And I think the incentives are particularly high when you know there's going to be another 40-odd ringers from around the country showing up all in one place. So I think these sort of events, whether they're striking competitions or 12-bell weekends, the importance.... Well, one of the important factors is is this idea that it becomes a draw for for people around the country, gives them an excuse to travel a long way. We're gonna go and do some ringing that they could probably do at their home tower anyway, but perhaps with not the same people.

Matthew Austin  
So there's a question that I've had about striking that I try and figure out- and I'm not sure that I'm plugged in enough, or that I have the experience to really put any intelligent thoughts to. But I wonder what you think about why we--at least in all the North American towers I've generally rung in--why we don't talk about striking more. Why is that a subject that just probably comes up a quarter as often as it should?

Stuart Barton  
It may be due to the history of ringing in the US, it may be down to where the the ringers that are presently ringing in the US have come from or were taught. One of the perhaps key differences that's noticeable in the UK, compared with the US is that the sense of duty that bellringers have in the UK to the church. So, many would say the sort of first duty of the bell ringing group is to provide a service to the church, ringing their bells for the for services, weddings, and such, like. Now, if you think about it from that perspective, obviously, the most important factor there is to perform your service, but to do it well. And to people listening outside or in the church, the quality of that sound is what's important. They're not particularly interested in whether you're ringing Cambridge or whether you're ringing rounds. What they do want is a nice rhythmical sound that is pleasant to the ear. And I think what's happened in the US, instead of this idea of service to the church, has been more of an individualist approach where it's more about personal challenge, wanting to try new methods, keep pushing the envelope. And what that's tended to do is mean we can bash our way through a through a new method that nobody really knows terribly well, just so we can get to the end, and it comes around and we can congratulate ourselves rather than think about "well, to be fair, that this isn't fulfilling the requirement of making a nice sound for the parishioners of the church and the city in general." That's why-



Matthew Austin  
And to anyone who who doubts that someone who doesn't follow ringing can tell the difference: I can tell you hands down every single time in the last 10 years that somebody on Kent's campus has come up to me and said, "you know, the ringing sounded really nice yesterday." That was a visiting band, who might have just been doing like you said, might have been doing some plain hunt or some Plain Bob. They don't have to be going nuts but striking well, really is aurally perceptible to the layperson.

Stuart Barton  
It is, sometimes surprisingly so to bellringers. But it is important. I think a lot of churches in city centres or near where people live, have this constant kind of threat of having complaints made against them for noise, you know, and I think non-ringers are just as sensitive as ringers are to bad ringing and particularly so if they live nearby. So yeah, I mean, improving striking to make sure the the non-ringers are are enjoying it is is important for many reasons. And that that's certainly one.

Matthew Austin  
So let's say I'm a tower captain, and I want to try and push my band to improving our striking: what are some things I should be looking out for? Do you have any exercises you recommend? Or how is this something that I can work into my weekly practice?

Stuart Barton  
Well, I think one of the one of the very simplest things to do, and we often kind of forget to do this with learners, is to teach people to listen. Sometimes that means just reminding them to listen and pointing out that they're perhaps a little bit quicker, a little bit slower in any particular stroke, but it could be as sophisticated as facing away from the ringing circle. So face your back to the ringing circle and effectively ringing blind or some people even ring blindfolded, or encouraging ringers to to close their eyes for a few strokes just to make sure that they're able to hear the gap they're supposed to be and try and put their bell into that gap. Now, it's very difficult when everybody is at a at a level that where they're struggling to place their bell because it's obviously difficult to predict where the holes gonna be that you've got to put your put your bell into, but it improves with time. And I think that the biggest problem is not encouraging people to listen, people think it's much more about pulling a rope just after the person I'm following pulls their rope. And of course, odd-struck bells and bigger bells, smaller bells, whatever it might be. Every bell's different. And that never really works. So encouraging people to listen I think is key and then keeping it simple. It's quite difficult to strike some methods well, methods that have got a lot of direction changes in them. You know, it's very difficult, particularly on heavier bells, and I know, yours at Kent can be particularly difficult to handle. But keeping it simple: rounds and call changes, you know, having having somebody who can accurately hear the good and bad striking points out to students that perhaps it's a little bit quicker at hand strokes back it off a little bit, can you can you hear the difference? And just keep people's mind on it. And then I think once people do it, they just go onto autopilot, and then they they're off, they're off and running. It's just perhaps an important thing to get in there. early on in the process.

Matthew Austin  
I know I find call changes invaluable for putting a larger bell near a smaller bell and pointing out to the kid who's on the seven that they can almost look like they're ringing on top of the two. And that's placing it correctly.

Stuart Barton  
Yeah, that's right. And I think, you know, as you point out, mixing the small bells in with the big ones. Yeah, super important to to get ringers to recognize how just looking at ropes is eventually the information becomes less less useful. So So yeah, I think that that's a very good observation.

Matthew Austin  
As opposed to, you know, in a method it just comes and goes too quickly. You're not hanging out there for a minute, next to some disparate bell.

Stuart Barton  
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and as ringers become more sophisticated, there are other things that are important. Learning about coursing order can be particularly helpful. Some methods will have very strong coursing orders. And in situations where two bells stay on course, for a long time, it's often just as important to listen to the relationship between those two bells as it is to listen to the relationship of those bells among the rest of the change. And you often hear that with the tenors: seven and eight perhaps in a major method, and you can you can hear these two bells coursing each other up and down, up and down the change as they do their work crossing and then coursing. Now that's a little bit more sophisticated in that situation, you're picking out your bell and you're picking out the bell you're coursing and you're listening for those two blows, and keeping it nice and rhythmical it's, it's each of these little things that I think you pick up on with practice. But fundamentally, it's this idea of getting people to listen, not just not just look, because ultimately we are ringing the world's largest instrument and the output is the sound and it should be measured in its quality of sound, not the speed at which we pull our ropes.

Matthew Austin  
And to me, it's not just the size of the instrument, it's also that it is an instrument designed to be heard for miles that should make us extra careful about making sure that our performances are pleasant.

Stuart Barton  
That's true. And I know that perhaps perhaps the other thing has allowed us to get away with some questionable striking sometimes is, you know, places like Trinity, we've got extremely good sound control. That's not always the case. In the UK, I think perhaps towns and cities are used to having bells in in the UK. So perhaps they're more freely sounded. And that's maybe kept more pressure on bellringers as well to keep the quality higher.

Matthew Austin  
So coming back to a striking competition. Let's assume the next competition is coming up. It's announced by Trinity. And in six months, I'd like to take my band to wherever the competition is being held. What sorts of advice would you have for someone thinking about how to make a sustained push to prepare for a competition?

Stuart Barton  
Well, what has typically worked for bands is to choose a band, stick on the same bells, practice the touch over and over again, I think having somebody who's leading it and keeping a close ear to it who will recognize moving ringers around on bells that suit them better. But ultimately, getting ringers very accustomed to ringing that piece over and over again. So you're getting rid of any type of method mistake right from the beginning. That's got to be of absolute importance to on the competition day, I think having your ear to the, on the on the bells. And then the other is getting the opportunity to practice at the venue. You know, your bells are very different to Trinity's. So being able to get there some time with with the band, have them on the bells that they would ring in the in the competition because although Trinity's bells are well struck, there's still little oddities that people will pick up on and that'll help them improve.

Matthew Austin  
So it's been a bit of a dry spell in terms of ringing: I think you said it's been over a year since you had your hands on a bell rope. But putting that aside, I'm curious if there's anything you're sort of looking forward to? Any projects you were working on that you're looking to resume or anything you want to add into ringing once we do get back to getting into towers?

Stuart Barton  
Well, that's right. Yeah, I mean, it has been some time now. I mean, we very much hope that Trinity will be able to host a competition this year, obviously, that's pending the COVID situation. I'm down in Miami now, and I've been down here for a couple of years. And we've got a very inexperienced band that was developing. And we were sort of getting to the Plain Bob doubles, Plain Bob minor kind of stage. My hope had been--before COVID--was to start arranging trips to Miami, possibly ringing peal weekends, maybe quarter peal weekends, things like this. And trying to attract visiting ringers from the rest of the US but also from from the UK. And then do some intensive training of local ringers down here using that and, you know, I think it might be a reasonably easy sell, you know, maybe do it in the winter, and once COVID's out of the way and people can travel. The idea that they can fly to 75-degree Florida in February, you know, it's probably quite appealing to me. 

Matthew Austin  
Yeah, I'll tell you Stuart: if you tell my kids they have a choice on spring break between me taking them on a ringing trip to Worcester or Birmingham in the UK versus Miami, I think I know which one they pick.

Stuart Barton  
Right? Yeah. And the bells here are super, they're a fairly heavy peal of eight, but really easy to ring, we've got reasonable sound control which allows us to ring over extended periods. And in fact, last, must have been about this time of year, February last year, we... I think we attempted four and rang three peals over a weekend. And it's events like that I hope to resume once we get back to normal.

Matthew Austin  
Well, I'm not kidding about getting the Kent kids down there. You've been a great supporter, both of my ringing and and very helpful with the kids and very encouraging of them over the years. So thank you for that. And thank you for coming on to Treble's Going.

Stuart Barton  
Well, thank you very much for having me. And I love teaching people and I've had greatly enjoyed hel ping them and see seeing some of them, you know really move with leaps and strides. It's super impressive what you've done out there. Well done.

Matthew Austin  
Thank you. 

Once again, that was Stuart Barton of Miami. On our next episode, we'll hear the second half of Kemp Brinson's interview with Simon Linford. 

We'd love to hear your feedback. Tell us what you're ringing, how you're doing, what you'd like to hear, whom you'd like to hear from. Email treblesgoingpodcast@gmail.com or head to treblesgoing.com where you can find show notes, listen to other episodes, subscribe to the show, leave a comment on an episode or contact us. 

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Thank you for listening friends.



Stuart Barton  
Here's an interesting- and I think this is a fact. I think Miami is the leading peal tower in 2020. I was gonna look on Bellboard, but because we got three peals in February, and then there was like: nothing. Because I think there's probably a few peals in March and then it would have ended. Right? I think Miami for the first time and maybe the only time in American history is going to be the leading peal tower. 

Matthew Austin  
Well, you know, we'll go ahead and we'll we'll christen it a fact here whether or not it's true. Rick Dupuis, if you're listening: you can write in and correct us if we're wrong, but we're gonna claim that Miami is the leading peal tower in 2020 just like my my Kent graduates of 2018 still claim to be the reigning high school/collegiate champion North American strikers.

Stuart Barton  
They are, they are and I'm happy to certify it. Just send me the document to sign.