Transformed wind chimes: Nature-Symphony 51

Nature-Symphony 51 (The fundamental pinnacle examining the source of inspiration itself) — Surely the peak of outlandishness in any of my musical creations, in its combination and deployment of a musically very potent trio of metal wind chimes, with ever-evolving, protoplasmic relationship between dissonance and visionary combinations of harmonies, taking us into an unimaginable rugged terrain, almost exploding with its sense of breaking out into new ground and climbing seemingly physically impossible mountains.

The density and creative dissonance of the sound here is often a wonder to behold, though there are sections of the most exquisite peacefulness and delicacy. Yet the often extended periods of a 'bedrock' of dissonance are illuminated by intensely beautiful recognisable intervals and harmonies, with strange and unpredictable harmonic transitions, as they continually spew out from that bedrock.

This is no doubt too challenging for the vast majority, a fair proportion of whom would no doubt regard this monster piece as 'outrageous' (to put it politely), but, my 'arrogant' counsel is still, as they say, "Just go for it, Tiger! — Go for the pinnacle instead of the armchair!". :-)

I allowed this piece to run to greater length than any others of mine to take advantage of the variety of timbres and dynamics in the original recording. In particular, it contains a quite lengthy event of a fairly prolonged modest wind squall, culminating in a light shower (you can hear some of the raindrops pattering on dead leaves on the ground) followed by some 15–20 minutes then with very little wind indeed and consequently only the most quiet and delicate chimes sound. I couldn't sensibly include such a long hiatus in this Nature-Symphony, and so I shortened it somewhat for the original half-speed version, and then for this work I took that and then aligned the three layers so that the wind squall started in Layer 2 as that in Layer 1 was running out of steam, and in Layer 3 the same happened, but following-on more closely. This left only a relatively short quiet spell there in the final mix before the wind returned, at a more moderate strength (no further squall).

This time I chose to let Layer 2 and especially 3 serve the function that I've normally given to bamboo chimes, to provide a more percussive contrasting element. Indeed, to my ignorant ears the sound of the chimes' strike tones in Layer 3 is more like Caribbean steel drums than any wind chime I've heard. That layer is too low-pitched for the chime's ringing tones to be heard much, and I gave that layer minimal reverb.

Chimes used:

(layers 1–4 — Note that Layer 4 is simply a fairly short clip from Layer 3, added to the mix at the end to finish with some bird sounds.)

1. Music of the Spheres Gypsy Soprano (6 tubes, tuned to an Eastern European Gypsy scale)

2. Davis Blanchard Pluto (8 tubes, tuned to an ethereal-sounding minor scale but incorporating a minor major seventh chord, spread through the two octaves, which embraces both minor triad and augmented triad, and gives it a teasing, mysterious dissonant aspect)

3. Davis Blanchard Twilight (8 tubes, tuned to a weird bunch of pitches, which give potent intervals and chords, notably augmented triad, minor major seventh, minor triad, major seventh, and a poignant repeating descending minor second (semitone))

Note that on top of various other tuning mismatches, the Gypsy chime is tuned to A440, while both the Davis Blanchard chimes are tuned to A448. The very strong 'beat' between particular pairs of notes is produced by interactions of the Gypsy and the Twilight chime; the Pluto chime is not guilty of that, but of course has its own tricks up its sleeve!

I made the original recording on 10 May 2018 (https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/681722/ ), on rough steep ground just below Hunting Gate, highest point on the Hunter's Path, Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK.

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

Two Davis Blanchard chimes being recorded in a previous session at the same spot.

Techie stuff:

Recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with two nested custom Windcut furry windshields, and it was placed on a Zipshot Mini tripod.

Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshields.

Preparation for this work included background noise reduction in Audacity, and use of TDR Nova GE to reduce low frequencies of microphone wind noise in gusts.

Layer 1: half-speed, giving an octave pitch reduction. Acoustic: moderate back-of-cathedral

Layer 2: Speed to give pitch reduction of an octave plus minor sixth below original. Acoustic: middling foreground in cathedral

Layer 3: Ditto, with further octave pitch reduction, totalling two octaves plus minor sixth below original. Acoustic: fairly close foreground in cathedral

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