This, the first peal of Series Six, shows off the basic features of all the new arrangements: the full twenty courses, a corresponding brevity and fluidity of construction, and the use of negative 56xxx and xxx56 coursing orders to bring in the complement of 72 back-bell rollups. Here, 56243 is used, giving us more 5678s off the front and 8765s at the back compared to the older peals. As a 5024, this peal must make do with the minimum number of course-end calls, just 17, or an average of 0.85 per course. The usual sets of Befores on the alpha and beta courses helps with this, but is by no means sufficient; instead the length is achieved with a wonderful efficiency of linkage, very often just a single course-end call being used to transition from one no-duffer coursing order to the next.

In comparison with the 20-course peals from earlier series, this 5024 is very musical. For instance, 5026 no.2 from Series Two has just 126 LB4, and 5152 no.3 from Series Five only slightly more, 138, despite the extra length; the latter peal also has substantially fewer 6578. However, compared to the 19-course 5024s in Series Five we are at a slight disadvantage, these peals achieving 140 and 150 LB4. This balance is redressed with a vengeance in the other, longer, peals of Series Six.

This arrangement has the property, intriguingly not shared with any of the other short-course peals, of containing no calls at consecutive leads. In all my other peals there is at least one course end with two calls at the same position, but here that remaining static feature of the long-course peal is removed, leaving a wonderfully fluid calling, as smooth as a honey-roasted cello.

Music counts are reduced, for example by comparison with 5024 no.5, but nevertheless this is a musical peal, retaining the "no duffers" property. Structurally the composition is I think very elegant, like my 5056 no.1 making use of calls at W,M to implement a "reverse Before", but this time using this not on the alpha or beta courses, but to replace some of the other 5678 runs generated by the optimal super-efficient block in the earlier compositions.

The reverse Before block is coupled closely to two blocks using standard Befores, to generate a simple and graceful shuttling effect at the centre of the peal. Setting WM as B' this can we written as: 4B, M, 2B', W, 2B. If we note that the M and W in this section operate on the little bells, generating back-bell rollups, then the back-and-forth shuttling action on the 5 and 6 becomes even more obvious.

This is the first Series Six peal to equal or surpass the music counts of Series Five, all within the constraints of twenty courses. Two negative courses are used, on 43256 and 56243, yielding a substantial swing to the 5678 off the front and 8765 off the back, with four 5678s at the back missed. But compared to 5056 no.3, we have the complete set of near-misses, and two more each of 6578 and LB4, all whilst using seven fewer course-end calls. I think that is simply remarkable - once again, I can only say, what a method is Bristol.

It's instructive to see the gradual increase in music counts in the 5056s I have composed since the original no.1 feted by Philip Earis in his "Compositions of the Decade". All of them have contained 72 back-bell rollups, but little-bell counts have slowly but surely risen:

	No.1, "The" 5056, Series 2	134 LB4, 20 6578 in 19 courses
	No.3 from Series Five	138 LB4, 22 6578 in 19 courses
	No.4 from Series Six	140 LB4, 24 6578 in 20 courses

The true splendour of this last composition in the 5056 lineage is that it achieves higher music counts than its forebears, whilst using an average of just 0.9 course-end calls per course, compared to 1.3 in the 19-course peals.

Very similar in music content to 5056 no.4, I include this arrangement because it feels to me slightly neater and simpler in layout, if with the slight disadvantage of opening with five Befores.

Increasing the length of the peal over 5100 changes, with the extra two or three course-end calls that allows, yields substantially more little-bell music. This 20-course arrangement has higher LB4 counts than all but two of my previous 19-course peals.

An alternative to my 5120 no.5 for those who prefer to ring all the 6578s, whilst maintaining a highly competitive level of little-bell music. See also my 5152 no.5 for a composition including all the 65s of this peal plus the same LB music as the other 5120 - the best of both worlds?

5152 changes is the maximum peal length I considered for Series Six. This example is absolutely superb, including all twenty-four 6578s as well as extremely high levels of little-bell music, and all the near misses. Indeed, it is probably the highest-scoring of all the Series Six peals. In structure, it is very similar to 5056 no.4 and 5120 no.6, with just the middle section of the peal differing.

Please let me know if you ring it, or any other of these compositions.

I include this peal because of the very high number of "4-runs" - 226, compared to 220 in 5152 no.5 - achieved partly by use of the interesting negative coursing order, 64532. This provides eight 4567/7654 runs near the start of the peal, a similar effect to that in 5024 no.4 from Series Five. However, that peal had four fewer 4-runs, and only nineteen excursions of the tenors to the front.