in ringing a peal Peals on tower bells can take anywhere from two and a half to over four hours to ring, depending on the weight of the bells. Handbell peals are shorter for equivalent changes. They are both a physical and mental challenge, as concentration has to be maintained for a long period of time, and each individual ringer has to ring their bell without a break, and depending on ringing style and bell weight can cause physical tiredness. Composition of peals is a specialised and highly complicated area of change ringing, as it involves composing a peal according to the rules. The "Conductor" of the peal has to: Control and ring their own bell in the correct sequence Correct other ringers if they go wrong Call the "bobs" and "singles" which are the "composition" – the equivalent of a musical score – that ensures the correct changes are rung in the correct sequence. A peal can fail at any point if there is a mix-up of bells which cannot be put right; this can happen only minutes from the end. Popularity of 10-bell methods According to the best available knowledge in 2017, 6,929 peals of Grandsire Caters (on 10 bells) were rung in the 300 years following 11 January 1711. Grandsire Caters was the leading 10-bell method in each decade from 1711 to 1890, but Stedman Caters has proved more popular recently and on 9 July 2010 its cumulative peal total from 1711 pulled ahead of the running Grandsire total. Long-length peals 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 40,320 changes. The last time this was rung on tower bells, it took 18 hours. Raising and lowering in peal "Raising in peal" does not refer to ringing a peal, but is the process where a band of ringers increases the swing of tower bells from mouth down to mouth upwards while keeping them ringing in rounds. The opposite process is "lowering in peal", where the swing of the bells is gradually reduced until they are at rest mouth downwards, again keeping the bells ringing in rounds throughout. Quarter peal