Extraordinary wind chimes trio — Olympos, Polaris, Mercury

a real 'Wow!' wind chimes trio hung up from trees high up in the Teign Gorge — but how come it's so beautiful yet sounds so sad?

1. Woodstock Chimes of Olympos (relatively low-pitched Ancient Greek scale)

2. Woodstock Chimes of Polaris (fairly high-pitched, pentatonic)

3. Woodstock Chimes of Mercury (very high-pitched, pentatonic)

Puzzlingly, a strong emotional atmosphere that I pick up from this ensemble's sound is that of a pervasive deep melancholy or sadness — much more profound than that experienced from any ordinary music composed to be 'sad'. This effect is from the combination of the Olympus chimes — which on their own sound quite melancholic — with any of the pentatonic ones in a higher pitch range. This is really odd, because each of the pentatonic chimes on its own, or any of them together, have a radiant sunny sort of sound, which you'd think would dispel any sadness or melancholy rather than intensify and deepen it!

Here I used the higher two of my pentatonic chimes with the Olympos chimes, and the effect is disturbingly other-worldly — so beautiful, yet like a great palace of immense sadnesses (the effect is augmented in the half-speed version of this recording). It seems to be telling a compelling story, yet we cannot fathom what it is…

I recorded this on 1 April 2014, on the rough slope just below Hunting Gate, which latter marks the highest point of the Hunter's Path, high up on the north side of the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK.

For more details about the different chimes used, please go to https://www.philipgoddard.com/shop/store-windchimes.htm.

Recording four Woodstock chimes in an earlier session (19 March 2014). On this occasion the recorder (light grey furry windshield) is perched on a small branch rather than on a tripod.

Techie stuff

The recorder was Sony PCM-M10, with Røde DeadKitten furry windshield. I have no note nor memory as to whether I had the recorder for this session perched on a branch (as in the photo above), or a Zipshot Mini tripod and thus closer to the ground.

Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshield — and then more recently stereo widening / sharpening-up using the VST plugin A1 Stereo Control (160% widening).

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