Transformed wind chimes: Nature-Symphony 29

Nature-Symphony 29 (Fragile eternity of an early springtime sunrise) — 'Eternity' is a joke, because that very concept is an absurdity! Life experience consist ONLY of change and impermanence, and therefore 'eternity' is tantamount to nonexistence (of us and everything)! :-)

Underlying this seemingly radiant and upbeat and at times blazing vision is an intense universal melancholy and sadness. One can hear traces of that within the mix, yet they don't announce themselves like that, and seem to be intensifiers of the glory of the early spring sunrise. However, slowed-down birdsong within the original field recording of the metal chimes sounds perversely sad and sorrowful, and the ending progressively reveals the mood of the different layers that constitute this work.

What happens then is that the four layers' endings are staggered, from bottom to top. So, the bamboo chime finishes first, and then successively the others, so you hear the effect of removing each layer's sound. As the bottom metal chimes layer terminates, so we hear the melancholy and sadness revealed as our sunrise (of course) ceases to be a sunrise! — And when only the top layer is still sounding, we hear that melancholy at its clearest and most intense. The obvious implication of course is that it's a bloody good idea not to get attached to 'priceless' moments, and joyfully to move on, so one can encounter more! Not rocket science or esoteric 'teaching', surely! :-)

This work is another that uses an immensely potent sextet of metal chimes as a starting point — the complexity of sound being considerably augmented by using that recording in three layers, differently deployed as compared with those of Nature-Symphony 27.

Chimes used: (total of 7)

Layers 1–3 (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)

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

7. '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, but I found that a more modest pitch reduction was better here, though still giving surprisingly deep bass for such a modest-size chime).

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 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). Geolocation map shows metal chimes location; the bamboo chime recording was just a bit further to left on the map.

You can hear the original metal chimes recording at https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/690451/ .

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.

Recording the bamboo chime for Layer4. 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: speed reduction to give pitch an octave plus a fourth below original.
Layer 3: quarter-speed, to give pitch two octaves below original. Note that that level of pitch reduction makes the chime sound quite different, i.e., not just the same as Layer 1 but two octaves lower. This appears to be because with substantial pitch reduction our ears listen to certain harmonics as though they were the respective fundamental of the particular tube, and if we hear the fundamental at all, it's perceived as an undertone, which actually makes for musical potency.

Layers 1+3 given back-of-cathedral acoustic in OrilRiver VST plugin; Layer 2 given moderate back-of cathedral acoustic, but at times sounds closer.

Recorder for the bamboo chime 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 also to 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 further processed that by reducing speed to 25%, achieving pitch of 2 octaves below original, and finally settled on a back-of-cathedral acoustic for it.

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