Nature-Symphony 39
— Progress on the unclimbed Mountain of Ten Thousand Ecstasies

Opus 73 (2024) — Timing: 61'

derived from field recording of ensemble of two metal wind chimes with large and small bamboo 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

Recording location for the metal chimes — A recording at the same spot during the previous session. The arrow points to the recorder. The bamboo chimes for this recording were **properly** placed: roughly same distance from recorder as the metal chimes, and well spaced apart.

Instrumentation — Part of field recording of two solo metal wind chimes plus large and small bamboo chime.
Original field recording location / date: 2 March 2017, on steep ground just below the Hunter's Path (high up on north side of Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK, by Hunting Gate, at the highest point of that track.
Processing and deployment:Two layers were used (both given back-of-cathedral acoustic):
- Layer 1 (the entire Nature-Symphony 38, without further procession)
  (half-speed and thus an octave below original):
  1. Davis Blanchard Debussy Bells (8 tubes, tuned to the whole-tone scale, but with one or two clashing notes);
  2. Davis Blanchard Pluto (8 tubes, tuned to a a minor-scale note sequence incorporating a minor major seventh chord, a minor triad and an augmented triad).
  3. Indonesian bamboo chimes, large and small (6 tubes each; imprecise but very compatible tuning).
- Layer 2 (a fresh extract from the same original recording, reduced to quarter-speed and thus two octaves below original):
  Therefore, same instrumentation as for Layer 1, apart from being lower and slower.
For fuller details please see the Freesound page for the work.
Distinguishing features — An intense sort of beauty, which many people would no doubt find difficult to connect with, while others gain from it something of a pinnacle musical / visionary experience. A lot of the power of this comes from certain recurrent sustained tones, which sometimes give a sense of the whole caboodle being driven by some sort of powerful dynamo that is beyond the comprehension of our everyday 'minds'.

Nature-Symphony 38 (Preliminary report on the unclimbed Mountain of Ten Thousand Ecstasies) is the basis of this work, forming the whole of its Layer 1. The second layer here adds depth, 'body', more variety and a lot more sense of drama.

Nature-Symphony 39— Progress on the unclimbed Mountain of Ten Thousand Ecstasies

Basic details

Nature-Symphony 39
— Progress on the unclimbed Mountain of Ten Thousand Ecstasies