Transformed wind chimes: Nature-Symphony 77

Nature-Symphony 77 (Threnody for a dying planet) — Not likely to flourish in the popularity stakes, this profound four-layer work seems overall to be near-static, yet always slowly seething with inner change, both actual and implied. Three of its layers paint a landscape now shrouded in a terminal sadness, through which the planet's beauties are still trying to shine, while one layer ('The Blues' chime) shines out now and again with its inherent radiance and apparent sense of trust in one's imminently 'moving on' and reincarnating in some far-beyond planetary system. Overall, an uneasy ambivalence presides, with much 'creative dissonance' when the radiant and the despairing parties are roughly in balance — but to those truly with 'ears to hear', even those more dissonant patches have their own intense sort of beauty, which lies in the constant morphing of dissonant intervals and chords into sweet consonances, which in turn morph into dissonance again while other consonances are emerging.

Chimes used

(Layer 1)
Davis Blanchard The Blues chime — 8-tube galvanized steel chime, tuned to a Blues scale.

(Layers 2–4)

• Woodstock Gregorian Chimes (tenor) — 6-tube, tuned to a bright and seemingly pretentiously upbeat-sounding Gregorian chant scale (which sounds quite different and sort-of 'twisted melancholic' at such low pitches as here).
• Woodstock Chimes of Pluto — 5-tube, moderately high-pitched, tuned to a radiant-sounding pentatonic mode
• Woodstock Chimes of Polaris — 5-tube, high-pitched, tuned to a radiant-sounding pentatonic mode
• Woodstock Chimes of Mercury — 5-tube, very high-pitched, tuned to a radiant-sounding pentatonic mode
• Woodstock Chimes of Mars — 5-tube, very high-pitched and penetrating, tuned to a a motif on a scale I don't recognise

I made both recordings by the Hunter's Path, on the rough steep slope just below Hunting Gate, high-up on the north side of the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK. The Gregorian plus smaller chimes were recorded as an ensemble on 19 March 2014 at Sharp Tor, and the The Blues chime was recorded on 16 February 2017.

Advisory

To get the best out of this, with its mass of detail, listen with high-grade headphones.

Another recording in the Gregorian-plus chimes session taking place.

Techie stuff:

For the Layer 1 recording the recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with two nested custom Windcut furry windshields, on a Zipshot Mini tripod.

For the Layers 2-4 recording the recorder was a Sony PCM-M10, with Røde DeadKitten furry windshield, perched on a branch by means of a GorillaPod.

Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshield, and, for PCM-M10 recording, widening the soundstage by 160%, which also greatly clarifies the stereo image.

For this work noise reduction was just strong reduction of mic wind noise using my 'extreme wind cut' preset (dynamic EQ) in TDR Nova GE for all layers individually.

Layer pitch shifts (semitones above / below original): -6 (half-speed), -12 (half-speed), -30 (quarter-speed), -36 (quarter-speed); cathedral acoustic: L1 mid foreground, L2 background, L3+4 moderate background.

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