Nature-Symphony 22
— Solar rays — The Sun's 'Poem of Ecstasy'

Opus 54 (2023) — Timing: 46'

derived from a field recording of a solo metal wind chime

Nature-symphonies — a transformational discovery (background notes)…

It was in 2012 that I tentatively started recording natural soundscapes, and within a few months got the idea of purchasing some high-grade precision-tuned wind chimes to record out in the wilds, hung up on tree branches. …

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… I quickly found that not only was the sound of each set of chimes individually beautiful and to some extent inspiring in quality when recorded out in the wild like that (mostly high-up in the Teign Gorge, Devon, UK), but also, almost all of the combinations of different chimes worked out beautifully musically, though naturally some combinations made a more 'challenging' listen than others.

Much more recently I tried making a half-speed version of part of each of the most appealing or otherwise 'promising' chimes ensemble recordings. They were each a revelation — immensely beautiful, with quite dramatic transformation of the original sound. That is, not just a matter of being slower and an octave lower, but the whole musical and emotional effect changed.

But then, in late August 2023 I got this little urge to do something really stupid (all the world's 'sheep' know I'm stupid anyway, so I thought I might as well do it anyway!), and try putting a particularly evocative chimes ensemble recording in a virtual cathedral, of all things, just to see how crazy it might sound.

I tried that with a particularly usable and effective reverb VST plugin called Orilriver, and was bowled over by the results. Shivers up spine, and plenty of goose-bumps for good measure! I then did listening spot tests using Orilriver in preview mode on a wide selection of my half-speed chimes recordings, and every one was incredibly, amazingly, transformed.

It was clear that I'd sort-of unwittingly stumbled into producing powerfully beautiful stochastic / probability-driven music works that have a lot in common with the ethos and methods of Iannis Xenakis, but with a big practical difference. Whereas typically he worked out probabilistic structures and processes to shape many of his works, this lunatic composer instead left that task to 'Mother Nature', then transforming those sounds in a way that Xenakis did in most of his electroacoustic works, to enhance their ability to excite the listener's own inner creativity and to generate profound and powerful experiences in the process.

It can be no surprise, then, that in these new works of mine there would be passing (albeit partial) resemblances to certain Xenakis works — Bohor comes particularly to mind, and even, in a funny way, some aspects of Terretektorh.

It was then a real no-brainer to recognise each such piece of mine as one of my numbered public music compositions. For the purpose of a liberating simplicity I chose to classify ALL of this type of work that I produce as what I'm calling nature-symphonies. That hyphen is important, because they are not just symphonies about nature, but are a very specific type of composition — nature-generated symphonies.

The term 'symphony', although closely guarded with a very restricted meaning by small-minded traditionalists, actually just means 'sounding together', which apparently was its original meaning. For me to want to use that term, there need to be at least two contrasting elements that are in some way combined or worked together in some way that is much more effective and deeply inspiring than the sum of those elements.

Although, in terms of my own nature-symphonies, that would mean ensembles rather than solo chimes sets, I've found that certain of my recordings using just one chimes set still produce effective and powerful nature-symphonies because of some element of the natural soundscape within which the chimes were sounding. A weir or waterfall, for example, or the wind itself, or a liberal amount of bird sound (much of which latter sounds remarkably musical at half-speed).

As for title for each work, they won't all necessarily have a title beyond Nature-Symphony [nn]. I'll add an imaginative title only where the finished piece suggests one to me. — Well, er, except that I do have one title earnestly looking for a work for it to be applied to, but currently I don't see how it could fit any extant or future transformed wind chimes works of mine! Not telling why!

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Basic details

Original recording for Layer 1 — *Making the last recording of the session. The scene for the original recording for this work was just the same, except no bamboo chimes, and the recorder directly facing the metal chime.*

Instrumentation — First half of a recording of a solo metal wind chime (Davis Blanchard 'The Blues'), used in two layers, so effectively giving us two instruments.
Original field recording location / date — 16 February 2017, on steep ground just below the Hunter's Path, by Hunting Gate, which latter marks the highest point of that path on north side of Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK.
Listen to the original field recording to appreciate the subsequent transformation.
Processing — Two layers were used, both with the same content, with different speed reductions to achieve Layer 1 an octave below original, and Layer 2 an octave plus fourth below original. They were both given a back-of-cathedral type of acoustic.

I give some more specifics about the chime used, and the subsequent processing, on my Freesound page for the work.
Primary distinguishing features — The Davis Blanchard The Blues chime, with its bright steely timbre and tuning with a gentle, unassuming-sounding Blues scale, was a curiosity from the start, but was a big surprise in the radiant positive power emitted from what had seemed to be a very naive and simplistic treatment of the recording.

The work's drama is not in obvious physical dramatics, nor rhythm, but in constant immensely meaningful harmonic shifts, usually against two main sustained tones, one an octave plus a fourth below the other. A half-diminished seventh chord and containing interval of a minor seventh is generally lurking around, based on the lower sustained tone, sometimes coming more out in the open, but much of the time it's more or less camouflaged by so many other intensely meaningful harmonic shifts and unorthodox 'cadences' that resolve one tension only to land the listener in a different one. The half-diminished seventh is a chord that really makes its mark in my Symphony 4 (Highland Wilderness).

Note how the work is replete with minor chords, yet nowhere at all do any of them impart even a hint of sadness, sombreness or indeed 'minor key'. Some of the harmonic shifts impart an almost 'cheesy' hugeness to the radiant splendour, and also may to some extent evoke recollections of the bombastic and egocentric 'splendour' of Alexander Scriabin's 'Poem of Ecstasy'.

However, let's remember, that the mode of creation of this work completely excludes any possibility of a Scriabin influence in this work, or indeed any composer influence at all in any of my Nature-Symphonies — even a Philip Goddard influence! If these works are expressing anything at all, it is simply 'What Is' expressing elements of 'What Is' (via 'Mother Nature')!

Nature-Symphony 22— Solar rays — The Sun's 'Poem of Ecstasy'

Basic details

Nature-Symphony 22
— Solar rays — The Sun's 'Poem of Ecstasy'