Nature-Symphony 35
— Night stroll among a bare mountain's crags

Opus 68 (2024) — Timing: 65'

derived from field recordings of two solo metal wind chimes plus a separately recorded solo bamboo chime, and an approaching thunderstorm

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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

Recording location for the metal chimes — *A later recording in the same session as this work's two metal chimes recordings. The arrow points to the recorder.*

This work's bamboo chime recording taking place — *The bamboo chime recording for this work taking place.*

Instrumentation — Part each of field recordings of two solo metal wind chimes, and of a solo medium-size bamboo chime, plus an approaching thunderstorm (in second half of the work)
Original field recording location / date:
- Bamboo chime recording: 21 November 2023, on Piddledown, just in the top of the open woodland high up on north side of Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK, just a little above the Hunter's Path.
- Metal chime recordings: 24 February 2017, a little way further east, on steep ground just below the Hunter's Path, by Hunting Gate, at the highest point of that track.
- Thunderstorm: 9 May 2023.
Processing and deployment:

Layer 1:
(solo metal chime): Davis Blanchard Debussy Bells (8 tubes, tuned to the whole-tone scale, but with one or two clashing notes)
Layers 2+3:
(solo metal chime): 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). This has some accompaniment from birds for a while at the beginning.
Layers 4+5:
Indonesian ornamented chime, medium (longest tube c. 42cm) (its 6 tubes being rather imprecisely tuned, but keying well with the metal chimes here)
Layer 6:
The approaching thunderstorm (in second half of the work)

Fuller details on the Freesound page for the work.
Distinguishing features — Intriguing, pungent and musically potent sounds from the metal chimes. The two chimes somewhat clash, so when heard both at more or less equal strength they can sound quite discordant, but this readily resolves into the distinctive sound of one or other as their balance changes — the effect often being dramatic. The bamboo chime, in its differently-sounding two layers, brings us not only contrasting timbres but also a lot of dynamism, compensating for the relative lack of that from the slowed-down metal chimes.

One feature of the Twilight chime is its repeated gentle oscillation between minor major seventh chord and minor triad, hinging on a particular semitone in its set of tones. This can sound plaintive or sometimes seriously sad, but in the current context it's not able to drag us down with it, and simply gives us one of the many colours and nuances of this imaginary soundscape.

All this was suggestive to me of high mountain crags, and the Debussy Bells chime suggested moonlight and resultant rather menacing silhouettes and shadows — which in turn suggested also some lightning around; hence my inclusion of an actual thunderstorm.

Nature-Symphony 35— Night stroll among a bare mountain's crags

Basic details

Nature-Symphony 35
— Night stroll among a bare mountain's crags