Nature-Symphony 43
— The Inner Fire's sun-like resplendence takes hold…

Opus 77 (2024) — Timing: 64'

derived from field recording of duo of metal wind chimes, with separately recorded medium-size 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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Background image of the YouTube video — *Motto image for this work, created by Bing Image Creator (AI) to my specification. It had to be cropped to the 16:9 ratio) for the video; the whole square image is much more impressive and impactful.*

Basic details

A different recording in the same session — without the Gypsy chime — *A different recording taking place in an earlier session — with two Davis Blanchard metal chimes and no Gypsy chime.*

Instrumentation — Part of field recording of duo of metal chimes with a little birdsong, and separately recorded medium-size bamboo chime.
Original field recording locations / dates: metal chimes 26 April 2018, 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. Bamboo chimes 21 November 2023, on Piddledown, a bit above the Hunter's Path.
Processing and deployment: Three layers (2 metal, 1 bamboo) were used, with different speed / pitch reductions, and different degrees of back-of-cathedral acoustic.

For fuller details please see the Freesound page for the work.
Distinguishing features — To me at least, this is one really big inspirer, and I hope other people will similarly be positively affected by it and themselves to get off their arses to live more meaningful and constructive lives.

What is this 'inner fire' of the title? It's the fullness of me. It's also the fullness of every single human-type being in the whole of 'Existence' — the only problem being that almost everyone is at least to a great degree shut off from that inner connection, so they continue to live their lives of insignificance within the greater picture, and worship their little 'gods', whether the latter be imaginary non-physical beings or similarly trivial things like big financial success or social status.

The fiery-sounding duo of metal chimes gives us plenty of meaningfully interacting shifting tonal colours and harmonies, but we also have, I think from the Gypsy chime, a strong tendency for a prominent sustained tone — a moderately high G from Layer 1 and a C from Layer 2 (Layer 2 being a fifth lower than Layer 1). That may drive some people to screaming and tearing their hair about this stupid so-called composer, but nonetheless, it acts as an intensifier and driving force, much like the high D sustained tone in much of the third movement of my Symphony 6. The G and the C together also emphasize the interval of the fifth, adding an imposing sternness to the sound when things get more wild.

Nature-Symphony 43— The Inner Fire's sun-like resplendence takes hold…

Basic details

Nature-Symphony 43
— The Inner Fire's sun-like resplendence takes hold…