Flies as musicians (2) — Nature-Symphony 67

Nature-Symphony 67 (Flies as musicians (2): wholetone minor 6th (explicit)) — This is an 8-layer rendition of https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/751150/ , which starts off with a little bit of linnet song, and also has the odd very quiet grasshopper at times as well as the flies. It's the second of a short series of Nature-Symphonies using the sound of flies treated musically. This is not the continuous hum of mostly hoverflies that I've recorded before in the woods.

Here we're out in the open on top of Cranbrook Down in warm to punishingly sweltery weather, high up to south of Fingle Bridge in the Teign Gorge, and with a far-reaching panorama around us. Here our aural attention is repeatedly drawn to the 'zing' of individual flies coming from different directions, and sometimes circling close around the recorder, while also of course we sometimes hear a bee or bumblebee fussing around on the odd close-by flower. As well as the brief bits of linnet song we get little flurries of their contact calls, and in a few places the alarm call of a stonechat is just discernible.

Later note: I've come to the conclusion that the type of 'fly' that really gives musical substance to my 'flies' Nature-Symphonies is not a true (two-winged) fly at all but bees and especially bumblebees, though true flies are still an important part of the effect too. Bumblebees especially pass by more slowly, and are generally the ones that give any semblance of legato note sequences or clearly-heard chords — often doing so by circling around the recorder. My apparently best recording session for flies for Nature-Symphony use, with lowest level of wind or background noise, and plenty of flies, turned out to be unusable apart from perhaps one or two freaky fun pieces just because that 8-hour set of recordings (from 2 recorders) captured virtually no bumblebees, and, just to spite me, had a premium proportion of the very annoying and unmusical-sounding flesh flies (sarcophaga carnaria) instead. — Mother Nature likes playing mischievous games with me!

The tuning of the layers is to the potent and evocative wholetone minor 6th chord, with a tritone added at the bottom to give it a still more dramatic quality. This is the 'explicit' version, in which the offset between neighbouring layers is short enough for the evocative wholetone minor sixth chord and its add-on heavy tritone to be frequently very evident, although often interestingly mauled by the unpredictability of the fly sounds.

Unsatisfactory constraints on all the flies Nature-Symphonies are primarily that (a) the sequence of layer offset durations is fixed for the whole work, so every sound will repeat the same quasi-melodic / rhythmic pattern (no rhythmic variation apart from the flies' antics), and (b) such a large number of layers means a quite high sum total of background noise, even after my best endeavours at noise-reduction.

Also, the 'explicit' and 'implicit' versions of one of these 'flies' Nature-Symphonies both have their respective pros and cons. The 'explicit' versions sound more overtly musical, yes, but the close offsetting of the layers results in each sound, if it's at all extended, piling on top of itself into a chord. That may be great musically, but a side-effect of that is that the overall sound is relatively 'choked', so that one misses a lot of beautiful fine details. The 'implicit' versions are not so overtly musical-sounding, but they win with their greater clarity and clearly audible fine detail. — However, whichever version you're listening to, high-grade headphones would win handsomely over speakers. You'd hear much more detail in either version that way, and also in headphones the most faint and delicate individual fly sounds would stand out much more effectively from the rather high-level background sound.

I made the original recording in very warm and humid weather on late morning of 14 July 2024 about two thirds of the way up the track from the Cranbrook byway (in the woods) to the hilltop (Cranbrook Castle, an ancient hill fort).

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

The original recording taking place.

Techie stuff:

Recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with two nested custom Windcut furry windshields. It was placed on a Sirui carbon-fibre tripod.
Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshield.

Layer pitch reductions (semitones above / below original): +2, unchanged, -2, -4, -6, -8, -10 -14;
Layer acoustics: Layers 1-6 middling foreground in cathedral; layer 7 moderate back of cathedral.
Note that in this and all the other flies Nature-Symphonies I'm not reducing speed of any layers; only pitch gets reduced (using kHs Pitch Shifter).

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