Transformed wind chimes: Nature-Symphony 19

Nature-Symphony 19 (Crazy sad dance — Jeoffry the cat's seven last meows at the foot of a moonlit cross) — This work doesn't portray its title image in any direct way (in other words, no actual meows), but rather, it embodies a certain essence of it. Here we have the exquisitely sad sound of the Olympos and Pluto metal wind chimes, intensified and made more ethereal and moonlight-like in effect by the transformation for this work, combined with three layers of a recording of two medium-size bamboo chimes, at different speeds and consequently pitches. Their frenetic dance-like activity (highly suggestive of cats chasing about after mice, little birdies, flying insects or maybe a wiggled bootlace), seems out-of-the-world in its lightness and vigour, yet if one listens closely, especially with headphones, one can hear a pervasive sadness through the notes that those chimes are sounding, because some of their notes are rather 'flat' as compared with our equal-temperament tuning, and this gives a 'sadness' effect that seems like a shadow cast from the metal chimes.

Although the bamboo chimes activity fluctuates, there is a general trend through this work. For a start, it's the fastest and highest-pitch Layer2 that starts simultaneously with the metal chimes (Layer 1), and Layer 3, slower and lower, joins in after about 5', and similarly Layer 4, still slower and quite deep bass, comes in another c. 5' later. Erratically the emphasis is shifting away from the highest and fastest toward the dark low sound, and slowest (though still quite frisky at times). Also the overall activity level for each layer gradually decreases in vigour.

Unsurprisingly, as the end approaches, the bamboo layers each fade out, starting with the top layer, and finishing with the bottom, leaving the now almost icy intensity of the melancholy moon (Layer 1) presiding over the scene as it fades away. — Is Jeoffry dead, or has he just lost his thread? — Who knows?

Added belatedly — one of Bing Image Creator's responses to this work's subtitle, "…in style of Munch". It appears that its AI engine has one big confusion between Edvard Munch and Vincent Van Goch, but at least the effect is both gripping and hilarious!

This Nature-Symphony owes something to the poem Jubilate Agno by the 18th Century poet Christopher Smart, though indirectly. I got to know some masterfully selected and arranged excerpts from that monstrous effusion of liberational genius in a beautiful and touchingly comical choral work called, unsurprisingly, Rejoice in the Lamb, by Benjamin Britten, in which I sang several times in two different choral societies, and thus got to know pretty well.

The direct inspiration is from Jeoffry the cat in my sixth novel, Forbidden Flood Warning — and especially the desolate final chapter — but of course that spelling of the cat's name indicates pretty clearly that Christopher Smart's Jeoffry was the underlying inspiration for 'my' Jeoffry. Indeed, not only that, but just having looked up about that poem for these notes, never having realized how huge and wildly, mind-bogglingly, creative it is, I see much in common at a deep level between his creativity and mine. I've done an internal check, and get intimations that Smart was very likely an earlier member of my own incarnational thread, for a vivid and often surreal-seeming imagery full of a humour that makes light work of all sorts of 'difficult' subjects, and which thus bewilders the 'sheep' majority, is quite a feature of more recent incarnations on my incarnational thread, for a very specific reason, though explaining that here would be getting too off-topic.

The original field recording for the metal chimes is https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/705915/. I haven't (at least yet) put the original recording of the particular bamboo chimes online.

Chimes used:

Layer 1 (metal chimes)

1. Woodstock Chimes of Olympos (tuned to an ancient Greek scale)

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

Layers 2-4: bamboo chime duo, medium (respectively 42 and 40cm longest tube).

I made the original metal chimes recording for Layer 1 on 6 November 2012 at a tolerably secluded spot at Sharp Tor, by the Hunter's Path high up on the north side of the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK. I made the field recording for the bamboo chimes on 21 November 2023 a little above the Hunter's Path just inside the top of the valley woods on Piddledown (Yes, I know, but that is the official name for that area of the hilltop!), with a rather too constant breeze. The given geolocation is for the metal chimes; the bamboo chimes recording having been made quite nearby.

Advisory
To get the best out of this, listen with high-grade headphones.

A later recording taking place, on 21 November 2012, with identical layout, except that the nearer chime in this photo is the Gregorian Chimes (looking almost identical to the Olympos chimes). The smaller chime behind is the Pluto.

The bamboo chimes recording for this work taking place. This view is rather oblique, foreshortening the distance between the two. The recorder is actually behind them from our viewpoint, so the ornamented chime is heard on the left (except from Layer 3, where I swapped channels for better distribution of the lower notes).

Techie stuff:

The recorder for the metal chimes (Layer 1) was Sony PCM-M10 with Rycote Mini Windjammer furry windshield (the original, more effective, light grey version); it was on a Hama Mini tripod. Recorder for the bamboo chimes recording (Layers 2–4) was Sony PCM-D100 with two nested custom Windcut furry windshields, on an Aoka carbon-fibre mini tripod. Its mics were set at narrow angle (90°) for subsequent widening to give a zoomed-in effect, and I was recording at 96kHz sampling rate, to slightly improve sound quality in slowed-down versions of the recording.

To minimize background noise, I had the recorder as close as workably possible to the chimes, and to minimize mic wind noise I had the recorder close to the ground and therefore facing steeply upwards to the chimes (see photo).

Basic post-recording processing of the chimes recording was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshield, with eventual stereo widening using the VST plugin A1 Stereo Control (160% widening for the M10 recording; 135% for the D100 recording).

To create this Nature-Symphony I processed the layers as follows:

Layer 1: reduced to half-speed and thus an octave below original — acoustic: back of cathedral; 'extreme wind-cut' custom preset in TDR Nova GE VST plugin, and 6dB background noise reduction in Audacity

Layer 2: reduced to half-speed and thus an octave below original — acoustic: relatively close in cathedral

Layer 3: reduced to speed to lower pitch by an octave plus a fourth below original — acoustic: relatively close in cathedral

Layer 4: reduced to speed to lower pitch by two octaves plus a fourth below original — acoustic: relatively close in cathedral

Layers 2 and 3 panned respectively 20% right and left.

Please remember to give this recording a rating — Thank you!