Extraordinary quintet of wind chimes — Gregorian, Pluto, Polaris, Mercury, Mars

A 'Wow!' wind chimes ensemble hung up from trees high up in the Teign Gorge — but how come it's so emotionally ambivalent? — See further below for some degree of explanation. Chimes used this time are:

1. Woodstock Gregorian Chimes (Tenor) (relatively low-pitched, a Gregorian chant scale)

2. Woodstock Chimes of Pluto (moderately high-pitched, pentatonic)

3. Woodstock Chimes of Polaris (higher-pitched, pentatonic)

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

5. Woodstock Chimes of Mars (very high-pitched and penetrating; not sure what scale!)

I recorded this on 19 March 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.

The ensemble for this recording gives us an uneasy inner conflict between the pretentious and, to me, rather smug sound of the Gregorian chimes, and the greater sense of genuine purity in the three pentatonic and the Mars chimes, the latter of which inject a few 'major'-sounding notes at the top end, which adds not just brilliance at the top end but an impassioned sense of narrative.

The overall emotional effect of the apparent 'major'-scale injection is to give an impassioned quality to the overall sound, especially where the chimes are most active. However, with the Gregorian chimes as the 'foundation', that 'impassioned' quality seems to me quite a bit twisted, even at times verging into an unhealthy sentimentality.

Actually, with regard to this recording session overall, things weren't straightforward for me. For one thing, the wind wasn't really as strong as had been forecast or indeed as what I was aiming for, and indeed there really wasn't enough wind at all for what I wanted till towards midday. For this reason certain of the recordings are really 'birds with gentle wind chimes sounds (on and off)'.

Also, I didn't get the chimes balance fully as I was after — though, generally speaking, the balance was still acceptable, there being no precise right or wrong about this. And then, as part of that issue, really the small chimes were a bit closer to the recorder than would have been ideal, and this led to the non-musical tapping sound of the strikers, particularly of the Mercury and Mars chimes, being intrusively loud on occasions, and in places the diminutive Mars chimes came out really uncomfortably loud.

Another issue for me was that the sound of these combinations, although exquisitely beautiful, was musically not what I'd been expecting, and indeed in some cases (primarily involving the Gregorian chimes) was something that I wasn't keen on (as already noted, actually sounding sentimental in a weird twisted way!) — though mitigated by the overall soundscape, with so many birds pronouncing their springtime territories.

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

Recording four Woodstock chimes in this session. 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. As already noted, it was perched on a tree branch, by means of a GorillaPod.

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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