Transformed wind chimes: Nature-Symphony 28

Nature-Symphony 28 (The mountaineer's 'Poem of Ecstasy') — An intense and challenging work of a visionary nature, which is the second of a pair using almost the same metal chimes ensemble. Unsurprisingly, the first of the pair is Prelude to the mountaineer's 'Poem of Ecstasy' (https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/718427/ ), and is pretty well as intense and challenging as this one, but with a significant difference.

This work is distinguished by using an immensely potent ensemble of four metal chimes as a starting point — the complexity of sound being considerably augmented by using that recording in three layers, differently deployed. The metal chimes provide the higher and, more strongly and persistently than in Nature-Symphony 27, sustained relatively high tones, and the rarefied quality suggestive of high places on huge mountains. (Amusingly, that incandescent sound strongly associates in my mind with an orgasmic sort of physical ecstasy, though, no, it doesn't make me physically horny!) On the other hand the bamboo chimes in this context (slowed down to produce low and even quite deep bass sounds) suggest the lower ground surrounding the mountains — and perhaps the lack of adventurousness / high aspiration that is typical of the vast majority down there.

Without the Woodstock Pluto and Mercury chimes that were in the ensemble for Nature-Symphony 27, the sound here is free from the element of wistfulness and 'hoping to get there' coloration that infuses that work, so is more clearly bright and incandescent in its motivation and purposefulness, those higher notes and intervals (lots of major seconds, giving an ongoing tension, drive and sense of human purpose), shining like a beacon through all clouds and would-be obfuscations.

Chimes used: (total of 6)

Layers 1–3 (metal chimes):

1+2. Music of the Spheres Gypsy Mezzo and Soprano chimes (tuned to different modes on an Eastern European Gypsy scale)

3. Woodstock Chimes of Polaris (high-pitched, tuned to a radiant-sounding mode on the pentatonic scale)

4. Woodstock Chimes of Mars (very high-pitched and penetrating, tuned to a scale that I can't put a name to)

Layer 4 (bamboo chime — with relatively imprecise tuning):

5. 'Small, Fancy 5-tube', (5- rather than 6-tube because of a little accident with it) (30cm longest tube) (A lovely sound despite the missing (actually non-essential) tube, and sounding exquisite when pitch reduced to upper- to mid-bass level).

Layers 5+6 (bamboo chime — with relatively imprecise tuning):

6. 'Pink hibiscus' ornamented chime, 6-tube, medium size (42cm longest tube) (Particularly full-toned and resonant for its size, and hence able to produce some really deep bass when recordings are slowed down or their pitch lowered sufficiently).

I made the metal chimes recording on 10 December 2013 on steep, rough ground just below Hunting Gate, highest point on the Hunter's Path, on the north side of the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK. The medium bamboo chime was recorded on 21 November 2023 a bit further west, in open copse a little above the Hunter's Path, almost at the top of Piddledown (quite near Castle Drogo); the small one was recorded very near the same spot on 11 December 2023. The geolocation given is for the metal chimes recording; the bamboo chimes were recorded just a little further to the left in the geolocation map.

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

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

Note that people without reasonable high-frequency hearing may miss much of the incandescent quality of this work. I mention this because while writing these notes I have a virus infection coming on, which, I assume temporarily, has reduced my high-frequency hearing, and I find the work sounding a bit inconsequential without my being able to hear the metal chimes pitches that sound like violin high harmonics.

It's best to ensure that the playing volume is set to a level that would give a realistic volume for symphonic orchestral music. At lesser volume those all-important higher tones more readily fail to get noticed and have their incandescent and inspiring effect. This has a distinctly higher dynamic range than the previous Nature-Symphony, so it is meant to come out quite loud at times, as the waveform shows.

The original metal chimes recording taking place. The recorder (light grey furry windshield, left) is perched on a small branch rather than on a tripod. We're looking down a quite steep slope from just by Hunting Gate. The chimes with black tubes are the Gypsy ones — the Mezzo being the largest and loudest and so placed furthest from the recorder; the Woodstock chimes are Polaris (left) and Mars (centre).

Recording the bamboo chime for Layers 5+6. The recorder is close to the ground, facing steeply upwards to this chime, off the bottom of this view, slightly right of centre.

Techie stuff:
The recorder for the metal chimes was a Sony PCM-M10 with Røde DeadKitten furry windshield (the original, more effective, light grey version), perched on a tree branch by means of a GorillaPod.

Basic post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshield, and, much more recently, stereo widening (160%) using the A1 Stereo Control VST plugin. Then I applied my custom extreme wind-cut preset in TDR Nova GE to drastically reduce the bass aspect of the wind noise.

For this Nature-Symphony I made three copies of the recording thus edited:

Layer 1: half-speed (octave below original)
Layer 2: half-speed, with further pitch reduction to total an octave plus a fourth below original.
Layer 3: quarter-speed, with further pitch reduction to total two octaves plus a minor sixth below original

All three of those layers given back-of-cathedral acoustic in OrilRiver VST plugin.

Recorder for the bamboo chimes was Sony PCM-D100, with two nested Windcut furry windshields, and mics set at narrow angle (90°), on an Aoka carbon fibre Mini tripod (keeping close to ground in order to minimize mic wind noise).

Basic post-recording processing (in Audacity) was to apply an EQ preset to correct for muffling by the windshields, and, in A1 Stereo Control, widening of the stereo image by 135% to zoom-in on the chime (and thus help reduce background sound).

Then I applied my custom extreme wind-cut preset in TDR Nova GE to drastically reduce the bass aspect of the mic wind noise. I further used Audacity's noise reduction function to reduce consistent basic background sound (mostly River Teign far below) by two steps of 6dB, and (in WavePad) used CurveEQ to tailor a severe high-pass filter (two 12dB increments) to virtually eliminate frequencies significantly below the chime's lowest pitch.

I made three copies of parts of the recording thus edited, but my precise data is suspect here, so I'm not sharing it. I was trying out so many options with the small and medium bamboo chime recordings (i.e., with regard to speed and pitch), that once I'd settled on my best choices I'd lost track of exactly what were the parameters for the candidates I'd chosen. I should have been writing down a note of each one, but that slipped my notice till it was too late. I could work it out through intensive listenings and comparisons with new examples, but it's not worth all that time expenditure.

Let it suffice that Layer 4 is sort-of upper bass, and the bottom layer is at least 3 octaves below original, and really deep bass.

That was followed by applying back-of-cathedral acoustic to all layers.

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