Nature-Symphony 51
— The fundamental pinnacle examining the source of inspiration itself

Opus 85 (2024) — Timing: 88'

derived from field recording of metal wind chime trio with some bird sounds

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 in the same session — without the Gypsy chime — *A different recording taking place at the same spot in an earlier session — with a pair of Davis Blanchard chimes*

Instrumentation — Part of field recording of a particularly potent trio of metal wind chimes with some bird sounds.
Original field recording location / date: 10 May 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.
Processing and deployment: Three main layers were used, with different speed / pitch reductions, and different degrees of cathedral acoustic. A fourth layer consists of just a fairly short clip from Layer 2 added at the end, to provide some bird sounds there.

For fuller details please see the Freesound page for the work.
Distinguishing features — The climax of my whole series of Nature-Symphonies, outstanding in its length, overall density, dynamic range, creative dissonance, and inspiring sense of exploring a huge totality.

I allowed this work to run to greater length than any others of mine to take advantage of the variety of timbres and dynamics in the original recording. In particular, it contains a quite lengthy event of a fairly prolonged modest wind squall, culminating in a light shower (one can hear some of the raindrops pattering on dead leaves on the ground) followed by some 15–20 minutes then with very little wind indeed and consequently only the most quiet and delicate chimes sound.

I couldn't sensibly include such a long hiatus in this Nature-Symphony, so I shortened it somewhat for the original half-speed version, and then for this work I took that and then aligned the three layers so that the wind squall started in Layer 2 as that in Layer 1 was running out of steam, and in Layer 3 I did the same, but having the squall following-on more closely. This left only a relatively short quiet spell there in the final mix before the wind returned, at a more moderate strength (no further squall).

This time I chose to let Layer 2 and especially 3 serve the function that I've normally given to bamboo chimes, to provide a more percussive contrasting element. Indeed, to my ignorant ears the sound of the chimes' strike tones in Layer 3 is more like Caribbean steel drums than any wind chime I've heard. That layer is too low-pitched for the chime's ringing tones to be heard much, and I gave that layer minimal reverb.

Nature-Symphony 51— The fundamental pinnacle examining the source of inspiration itself

Basic details

Nature-Symphony 51
— The fundamental pinnacle examining the source of inspiration itself