Transformed wind chimes: Nature-Symphony 30

Nature-Symphony 30 (Mother Nature telling springtime melancholy not to be so silly!) — This uses the same metal chimes recording as in Nature-Symphony 29. However, that is differently deployed here, and my choice of contrasting element had to be different. This uses just two layers, and instead of their both consisting of the same excerpt from the original field recording as in the previous Nature-Symphony, this time they use the whole original divided between them, but in such a way that a big climax towards half-way through Layer 1 comes again almost at the end of Layer 2 (and therefore at a lower pitch, and sounding more heavyweight).

Again we have the springtime melancholia, this time with a lot more birdsong than was evident in Nature-Symphony 29 (i.e., within the metal chimes recording). As it's all slowed down, even the birds sound melancholy. — Not wishing to bring in bamboo chimes every time when a contrasting element is required, I added part of one of my Bellever Tor (Dartmoor) dawn chorus recordings, which does help to make more sense of what some would undoubtedly dismiss as a tedious hour of melancholic wallowing. The final coup de théâtre from that dawn chorus recording comes right at the end, and the sordid truth is that I didn't even know it was there till in Audacity I listened right through my draft of the work. What a dumbfounding fluke! :-)

Layer organisation:

Layers 1+2 (6 metal chimes):

1. Woodstock Chimes of Olympos (tuned to a melancholy-sounding Ancient Greek scale)

2. Woodstock Gregorian Chimes (Tenor) (tuned to an upbeat-seeming Gregorian chant scale)

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

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

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

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

Layers 3+4: These are higher-pitched versions of the final climax in Layer 2 (made direct from the original for best sound quality) to reinforce it, and deployed them left and right)

Layer 5: Part of one of my spellbinding dawn chorus recordings from Bellever Tor, Dartmoor, running for full length of this work, starting in near-darkness and exceedingly quiet, and gradually gaining audibility and momentum, so this layer's ending is quite a match for the big metal chimes climax, albeit in quite a different way from brute volume of sound.

I made the metal chimes recording on 19 March 2014 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 dawn chorus recording is one of four concurrent dawn chorus recordings I made from pre-dawn (still dark) to early morning on 1 June 2019, this one being from the north-west flank of Bellever Tor, Dartmoor, near Postbridge, Devon, UK, near the forestry perimeter. Birds heard include nightjar (a very little, early on), cuckoo, blackbird, willow warbler (a lot), blackcap, song thrush.

The geolocation given is for the metal chimes recording.

You can hear the original metal chimes recording at https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/690451/ . The specific dawn chorus recording used here is not online, but a very similar recording (another of the concurrent four) is at https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/662284/ , and very much worth a long listen.

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.

Another recording taking place, in the same session as the metal chimes recording used in this work. The recorder (light grey furry windshield, centre) is perched on a small branch rather than on a tripod. We're looking down a quite steep slope from just by Hunting Gate.

Towards end of the dawn chorus recording, looking NNW from almost top of Bellever Tor. The arrow points to approximate location of recorder, among the young self-seeded Sitka spruce trees outside the forestry perimeter.

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 two copies of the recording thus edited, and made two further layers, each containing just the mid-recording big climax in Layer 1 to reinforce that climax's recurrence almost at the end of Layer 2:

Layer 1: half-speed (octave below original)
Layer 2: speed reduction to give pitch an octave plus a fourth below original.
Layers 3+4 speed reduction to give pitch just a fourth below original.

Layers 1+2 given back-of-cathedral acoustic in OrilRiver VST plugin;
Layers 3+4 given moderately foreground cathedral acoustic.

Recorder for the dawn chorus was Sony PCM-D100, with (very unusually) one Windcut furry windshield, and positioned it on a Hama full-size tripod in (excellent) shelter of a couple of self-seeded young Sitka spruce trees.

Basic post-recording processing (in Audacity) was to apply an EQ preset to correct for muffling by the windshield. For this work I used the recording without speed or pitch reduction, but added a modest reverberation to help integrate the soundscape into the sound of the other layers.

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