Flies as musicians (3) — Nature-Symphony 68

Nature-Symphony 68 (Flies as musicians 3: Half-diminished seventh (explicit)), which I'm also calling Rannoch Moor Moods (1). — This is a 7-layer rendition of half of https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/751156/ . It contains grasshoppers and some linnet contact calls as well as the flies and bumblebees. It's the third of a short series of Nature-Symphonies using the sound of flies treated musically, and the first of a few of those that I'm calling Rannoch Moor Moods because they use particular chords and powerfully brooding atmosphere that bring back to me my powerful experiences of walking on that wild and haunted landscape.

The chord used here (half-diminished seventh, though with added diminished triad at the bottom to emphasize a tritone there) forms the backbone of my whole Symphony 4 (Highland Wilderness) (https://www.philipgoddard-music.co.uk/sym4.htm, likewise with emphasis upon the interval of the minor seventh, the bottom note tending to hold on as, or at least implying, a drone.

The fly sound 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 and bees coming from different directions, and sometimes circling close around the recorder. Here and there we get little flurries of linnet contact calls.

This is the 'explicit' version of the Nature-Symphony, in which the offset between neighbouring layers is short enough for the evocative half-diminished seventh chord and its bottom-end add-ons are immediately apparent, especially when a fly or bumblebee passes by sufficiently slowly for one to really hear the notes.
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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 (wasps and hornets would probably be good too, but I don't think any of those have got into my recordings). Bumblebees especially pass by more slowly, and are generally the ones that give a semblance of legato (smooth) 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 for anything 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!
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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 any 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 during a very extended lunch stop on 17 July 2024 on the top of Cranbrook Down (Cranbrook Castle, an ancient hill fort), high above the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK.

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

A 4-days-later mockup of this 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, which was set to a low height to help minimize wind disturbance.

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): unchanged, -4, -7, -10, -13, -16, -10.
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!