Transformed wind chimes: Nature-Symphony 10

Nature-Symphony 10 (Moonlit nocturne: "Whispery mutterings of a million nothings, each with its story to tell"). In the original field recording (https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/705354/ ) we had joyful airy rustic rattling and scuttling of bamboo wind chimes, with delicate sunny pentatonic metal chimes, recorded high up in the Teign Gorge. In this transformed version in three layers, at one level we're in a static state just watching the silent moonlit landscape, yet within the apparent nothingness is abundance in plenty for those with vivid imaginations. Here the bamboo chimes joyfully but also somewhat eerily play out the imaginary dramas that the moonlight is trying to deny…

Chimes used:

1. Woodstock Chimes of Pluto (fairly high-pitched, pentatonic)

2. Bamboo chimes, large and small set (rather indeterminate tuning, with a touch of whole-tone scale — bought cheaply at local store)

I made the original field recording on 21 November 2012 in a reasonably secluded position at Sharp Tor, by the Hunter's Path, high up on north side of the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK. I'm actually rather disappointed with this transformation — though in truth it was only an experimental 'aside' — because the Pluto chimes' 'strike' tones came out weak and mostly not audible. If properly audible, they would sound like an additional instrument and give a more dramatic and varied impression of the proceedings.

There was nothing I could sensibly do about that, because the different processing parameters needed to get more of the Pluto's strike tones would have made the bamboo chimes sound more normal, and that I didn't at all want. So it was this or nothing.

I was rather expecting to discard it, but then on listening to it again the sense of a moonlit landscape full of imaginary will-o'-the-wisps and untellable dramas within the silence, and the wonderful vigour and antiphonic interplay of bamboo chimes in all directions, suggested to me both 'Moonlit nocturne' and a line from one of the poems in my collected poetry volume (https://www.philipgoddard.com/shop/bookstore.htm ), "Whispery mutterings of a million nothings, each with its story to tell" made a nicely crazy bit of sense of my new piece. I more or less gracefully (of course!) accept that a fair proportion of people would find this particular piece boring — but then again, for some it would be nice refreshing get-to-sleep music!

The original recording taking place; the small bamboo chimes are difficult to see, just behind and lower than the Pluto (metal) chimes, and its tubes are black to confuse us all. Now try to spot the recorder, on its tiny tripod (with black furry windshield)…!

Techie stuff:

The recorder was Sony PCM-M10, with Rycote Mini Windjammer. It was set up on a Hama Mini tripod, which I regard as not just 'mini' but tiny. Although I fairly quickly learned subsequently to avoid having recorders so close to the ground (distorts the frequency spectrum and tends to overemphasize lower parts of the frequency range), actually in this situation it was necessary to have the recorder really low down, where the wind was much lighter.

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).

Processing to create this Nature-Symphony was speed and thus pitch reductions, different for each of the three layers, and application of a 'moderate' back-of-cathedral acoustic, using a custom preset in the OrilRiver VST plugin.

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