Nature-Symphony 30
— Mother Nature telling springtime melancholy not to be so silly!

Opus 62 (2024) — Timing: 43'

derived from a field recording of sextet of metal wind chimes, plus separately recorded recording of birds' dawn chorus on Dartmoor

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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

A different recording taken during same session as the original for this work — *A different recording with only four metal chimes taking place during same session as the original for this work.*

A different recording of the large bamboo chime, made a week or so later near the same spot — Towards end of the mammoth dawn chorus recording session. Arrow points to approximate position of recorder for this recording, among the small self-seeded Sitka spruce trees outside the forestry perimeter.

Instrumentation — Part of field recording of sextet of metal wind chimes, used as 2 layers, and part of a long recording of a Dartmoor birds' dawn chorus.
Original field recording location / date:
- Metal chimes: 19 March 2014, high up on north side of Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK.
- Dawn chorus recording: 1 June 2019, north-west flank of Bellever Tor, near Postbridge, Dartmoor, Devon, UK.
Processing — The layers were processed as follows:
- Layer 1 (metal chimes): half-speed, thus an octave below original; 'back of cathedral' acoustic
- Layer 2 (ditto): speed reduction to make it an octave plus a fourth below original; moderate 'back of cathedral' acoustic (also two additional layers just reinforce the final climax, being higher-pitched — slowed to reduce pitch by just a fourth);
- Layer 3 (the dawn chorus): no speed or pitch change; a modest reverb added, to help integrate the sound properly in the mix.
I give some more specifics about the recordings, chimes used, and the subsequent processing, on my Freesound page for the work.
Distinguishing features — Both the metal chimes layers contain the same chimes ensemble, so they should sound just the same apart from Layer 2 being lower-pitched — right? — Well, actually no, for a specific reason. As we lower the pitch of the recording of these chimes, there come points beyond which, within our perception, a particular harmonic of a tube will no longer function as a harmonic, but will be perceived instead as the fundamental. Then, what had been perceived as the harmonic before, if it's noticed at all, gets experienced as an undertone. Differently-pitched tubes will have their own individual points at which a specific harmonic becomes perceived as the primary 'singing' tone.

That means that the perceived intervals between notes are different when heard in different pitch ranges. For this reason, the top layer here has a fairly melancholic sound — indeed a rather 'twisted' sort of melancholy, thanks to the presence of the Gregorian chimes —, which one would expect to largely counter the melancholy effect of the Olympos chimes — yet Layer 2, being a fourth lower, has a significantly more positive sound, with little of the melancholy. The two layers interacting still sound fairly melancholy overall, but with changes of mood according to which layer has dominance at each point.

Towards the end, a big climax in Layer 2 brings forth a great surge of positive energy, throwing aside all doubts and equivocations. I reinforced that, using a copy of that climax, made direct from the original recording and reduced in speed only enough for pitch to be a fourth lower than original, which is higher than Layer 1 or 2 and so adds more brilliance and sparkle to the climax.

The dawn chorus recording starts extremely quietly, much of it initially being masked by the chimes, but as it develops and more birds are singing, some quite nearby, one's attention is progressively focused more on that dawn chorus and less on all that melancholy stuff.

I was going to copy one of a choice of close-encounter cuckoo events to add into the actual ending, but by one great fluke, I found that 'Mother Nature' had actually done it for me, and perfectly, so I had no cause to add anything there!

Nature-Symphony 30— Mother Nature telling springtime melancholy not to be so silly!

Basic details

Nature-Symphony 30
— Mother Nature telling springtime melancholy not to be so silly!