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!
