Chronological list of recordings, Part 1
Natural Soundscapes and Related Recordings
Downloads from Freesound
Chronological List of recordings
(most recent dates first, oldest last, but listings within a date are in normal order)
The green tick marks are for indicating status of recordings that I currently consider worthwhile to put on Freesound.
A single tick mark signifies a recording I've flagged for eventual upload to Freesound. In many cases it replaces an already extant link for getting a paid-for download (on my old system).
A
double tick mark signifies a recording that is now on Freesound. At the
end of that recording's description there should be a prominent link to
that recording's Freesound page.
My plan is eventually to have all the recordings currently with single green tick to be available on Freesound — but that would be an ongoing long-term project.
Please note that in 2019 I withdrew most of these recordings from CD or download availability, which were of more or less continuous sea, water or general wind sound, and expect to delete those recordings themselves, plus many more in this list that didn't make it to public availability in the first place.
This list has therefore become much reduced in length, and may do so a bit more over time, while Part 2 will continue slowly to grow and maybe eventually overflow into a Part 3.
Such a heavy pruning of the list is due to an interaction between the poor stereo imaging of the PCM-M10 and the stereo-enhancing software I eventually used in an attempt to improve that stereo imaging — which worked dramatically well for discrete non-continuous sounds such as birds and bird choruses, but not for generalized, more broadly distributed sound such as noisy water (especially sea) or sometimes wind in trees.
The problem is not really the software I was using, but the use of omnidirectional mics in that recorder model in the first place, with no significant acoustic barrier between them. That gives poor stereo imaging, and all sorts of phase issues with wide expanses of sea or similar sound when any software at all seeks to improve the stereo image.
My general aim is to produce much superior equivalent recordings to the best of the deleted ones, using the PCM-D100 as and when circumstances / conditions allow.
Cornwall, sea
>> 15 Mar 2016 — By the coast path a little north of Chapel Porth, Cornwall — dramatic
breaking of waves close to cliff base.
1r — 59'
160315_r1-01 — Between Chapel Porth and the iconic Towanroath engine house ruin, a little nearer the ruin than
the 14 April 2015 recording here. This is high up, the coast path contouring the very steep slope
and leading on towards St Agnes Head. Again the sea is up against the cliff base, but the tide is
going out.
For about the first 20 minutes, only a limited number of waves break, doing so near the cliff base so that instead of a hissy run-out sound you get a wonderful deep rumble as each wave goes out of direct earshot (because of the slope continuing down and then falling away as more or less vertical cliff), and has fairly violent altercations with the cliff. Beyond the first 20 minutes, the breaking of waves becomes more frequent, progressively commencing a little further and further out, thus with increasing tendency to the hissy standard run-out sound of standard surf on a beach. — 59'
Cornwall, sea
>> 25 Oct 2015 — Droskyn Point, Perranporth, Cornwall; looking over alcove in the cliffs to
the SSW — sea pandemonium with blowhole activity
1r — 40'
151025_r1-02+03 — This is the most frequent and consistent activity I've yet noticed from this blowhole, and it's
a wonderful sound, with some big splashdowns. — 40'
Cornwall, sea, seals
>> 18 Aug 2015 — Between St Ives and Zennor, Cornwall — gentle sea with distant seals, bird
calls, and grasshoppers
4r — 19' — 14' — 1h:08 — 1h:15
At last some seals have relented on their previous embargo upon 'performing' whenever I'm aiming
to record them! They make eerie wavering moaning sounds, and make for really 'atmospheric'
recordings when heard at a distance.
I took it as 'read' that the seal sounds were coming from seals on The Carracks ('Seal Island'), as I'd assumed they were on all the previous occasions when I'd heard them when I'd been passing through on various hikes (and everyone else there thought likewise). However, I've established that the sounds couldn't possibly have been coming from there, at least on this occasion, for they were coming from the left in all this day's recordings, which would have meant Economy Cove for 1.1 and 1.2 and probably 2, and Mussel Point for 3.
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Opposite The Carracks ('Seal Island'). The recording session here had to be cut short because a family group arrived and the children went playing about on the rocks and in the sea, making the sorts of sounds that children make when they get a chance!
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150818_r1-01 — Lower position, more shielded from the sea sound. This captures the seals particularly clearly and prominently. — 19'
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150818_r2-01 — Higher position, with more prominent sea sound. The seal sounds are much more buried in the sea sound, but this is still very 'atmospheric'. Later in the recording we hear calls of linnet and then rock pipit flitting around. — 14'
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150818_r1-02 — On clifftop directly overlooking Economy Cove, where the pulsing blowhole is. Thanks to the very small swell, the blowhole itself was inactive, but surprisingly, the cave system associated with the blowhole was giving frequent gentle booms, though these decreased progressively as the tide went out. Distant seals (on The Carracks) can be heard at times, mostly in the second half of the recording, and intermittent very gentle singing of grasshoppers adds foreground interest. — 68'
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150818_r2-02 — Mussel Point, on a rock prominence where I hadn't recorded before, whose
position among the cliff 'apron' rockiness gives it very considerable shielding from direct sea
sound — at least, with as small a swell as occurred on this occasion. This enabled the seals to be
heard much more strongly than in the concurrent Economy Cove recording, and also gave prominence to the
wonderful atmospheric calls from the odd curlews that periodically flew past in one direction or
the other, plus the invigorating calls of oystercatchers.
Unsurprisingly, herring gulls feature strongly at times, and in the background great black-backed gulls can be heard once in a while, and very bird-savvy listeners with sharp ears may notice a few distant strange creaky utterances from the odd razorbill. The main small songbirds heard (contact calls only) are linnet and rock pipit.
This was actually a salvage operation, not only because of the many disturbances that required all this day's recordings to have cuts that amounted to approaching half the respective recordings' durations, but also because a rare malfunction of the particular recorder struck for this recording, and the left channel had almost no sound, except for about the central third, which appeared to be okay, so the edited version of that central chunk came to a princely 23' (out of the original 103').
However, in late 2019, when I was revisiting selected PCM-M10 recordings for stereo image enhancement, I was thinking what a pity it was that most of this recording was unusable, and just for the hell of it I tried selectively amplifying the 'down' sections of the left channel. To my surprise I found that with something like 13dB (yes, thirteen decibels, which I think amounts to roughly 500%!) amplification of those sections, they seemed to have just as good quality as the right channel — clarity, detail, dynamic range and lack of obvious hiss.
Therefore I then made a new, longer, edited version of the whole recording. There was still an issue, however, because by cutting out all the even slightly intrusive motorboat sound I'd reduced the recording to just some 50 minutes, and in so doing I'd cut out some of the best bits for the seals / birds. So I had another go, this time retaining additional sections with some boat sound, where there was also seal / bird sound worth keeping in.
This changed the character of the final edited version, which now sounds more 'rough and ready', but also more vibrantly authentic and engaging. In fact in this particular context the boat sounds, in moderation, and with the more intrusive sections still cut out, are a welcome aspect of the recording, even though my general policy is to edit out virtually all 'civilization' sounds in my recordings. — 75'
Dartmoor, birds, bats, sleep-assist
>> 1 Jul 2015 — By River Teign, immediately upstream of Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon — River Teign, pre-dawn, and dawn chorus
3r — 1h:18 — 38' — 39'
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150701_r1+r2-01 — Two recordings of the River Teign made at different positions, now spliced together. They were actually cut from the pre-dawn-chorus section of each of my pair of dawn chorus recordings made that day — 78' (compilation for CD). A great sleep-assist album!
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Two dawn chorus recordings, made from the same positions as the above pair of River Teign recordings. This is actually a salvage job, because I had a pair of nice long dawn chorus recordings with some really nice sound, but in both cases wrens came to dominate the show and made the listening experience tedious and even stressful. Initially I discarded these recordings because of that, but then restored them from a backup and tried cutting off the whole later part of each, so that they were reduced from about 1½ hours each to just one full CD's worth when put together.
Although this isn't at all what I was originally aiming for, it does seem to work well and captures really beautiful soundscapes. We miss out, therefore, on the worst excesses of the wrens, but the down-side is that we also miss almost all of the crow family (carrion crow, jackdaw, rook and raven), which all came in late in the full recordings.
The recorder positions were both on top of fence posts beside the River Teign, bounding the very large hillside field immediately upstream from the Teign Gorge. They were both facing into the field (and thus facing its copses and the line of trees forming its top boundary), with the river and its rather enclosing trees behind them. The distance between the recorders was sufficient that very little bird sound close to one would be noticed on the other (though a reasonably loud bird halfway between could in some cases be heard quietly by both). So, for practical purposes these are different soundscapes and not just different perspectives on the same one.
Both recordings have the River Teign as a background — actually a slightly stronger sound than I was really intending (i.e., for balance with the birds), but it still sounds great. The background hiss, especially in the more upstream recording, isn't a recording problem but actually a gentle reverberation of the higher frequencies from the water sound, coming off the tree foliage fairly closely around and overhanging the river.
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150701_r2-01 — Towards the upstream end of the field. As well as the bird chorus and the odd distant farm animal, there are quite frequent more or less close fly-overs of a pair of bats. These latter will be heard only by young people — generally in their teens at most — and then only if their speakers / headphones reproduce frequencies up to 21kHz in all their fullness. The edited recording as presented here starts with an agitated pheasant and some distant tawny owl calls, and fades out with the squeaky-wheel-like song of a goldcrest. — 38'
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150701_r1-01 — Near the downstream end of the field. — 39'
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Cornwall, birds, sea — dawn
>> 24 Jun 2015 — Cot Valley, south-east of Cape Cornwall, Cornwall — dawn chorus
1r — 1h:53
150624_r2-03+04 — Dawn chorus in the Cot Valley, south side, on the highest track, a little way
inland, fairly well down the track where it's descending inland towards the little road, but still
well out in the open. The recorder faces across the valley, having a more or less distant but very,
very expansive perspective on the valley's dawn chorus, with the sea in Porth Nanven clearly
audible to the left.
A constant more spread-out gentle hiss is actually NOT a problem with the recording, but the small stream that runs down the valley. Whereas in the actual location I heard that sound as clearly coming from the stream bed down below, an ordinary stereo recording / playback cannot locate the sound in that way, so unfortunately it comes mixed up in all the other sounds and thus appears to be just the background hiss of a poor recording!
Unusually in my experience, blackbirds started off at kick-off time, instead of waiting another half-hour before coming in. And they give us a great treat, albeit at a moderate to mostly great distance. The tentative beginning of the chorus soon expanded so that I was hearing a continuous murmuring of distant blackbirds in all directions, including not only the valley bottom and slopes but also the fields on the high ground either side of the valley — though of course the ordinary stereo recording couldn't capture even half of the detail and sheer magnificence of the blackbird chorus that I heard there.
One little 'unfortunately' is that the bird that kindly came to sing in the foreground then wasn't a blackbird (which latter was what I so much wanted!), but a cantankerous, scratchy-sounding Whitethroat. That wouldn't have mattered in moderation, as the blackbirds are still easily heard between the whitethroat's short phrases, but it went on and on, with some partial lapses, for some 26 minutes before standing down to let others have their say without interruption! Other birds heard include song thrush, wren, robin, chaffinch, chiffchaff, goldfinch, dunnock (I think),woodpigeon, the inevitable carrion crow, and a transient teasing hint of a chough.
On subsequent listenings to this recording, however, I've warmed to it, not finding the whitethroat anything like so tiresome, and generally being better able to hear the blackbirds and other bird sounds in the background. This is now greatly helped by the stereo enhancement applied in 2019/20, which makes for a really wide and much more sharply detailed three-dimensional soundstage.
The edited recording starts at about 4.20 a.m. BST, giving just a little pre-dawn-chorus lead-in time. — 78'
Cornwall, sea
>> 14 Apr 2015 — Chapel Porth to Perranporth, Cornwall — three more striking recordings.
3r — 39' — 52' — 45'
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150414_r1-01 — Between Chapel Porth and the iconic Towanroath engine house ruin, overlooking
an alcove in the lower cliff slope, which the OS map marks as having a cave there. A substantial
'moderate' swell, with tide high, so the waves are mostly not breaking, and we hear a continual
gentle rippling and swashing sound, but with the most exquisite continual subterranean-feeling
gentle deep reverberant rumbling, with the odd deep booms, which briefly intensifies as larger
waves come in. On a few occasions a larger wave does break before meeting the cliff, and that sound
is really dramatic. A peaceful and, in a way, soothing soundscape, but with a delicious feeling of
menace. — 39'
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On the tip of the Shag Rock headland, near Perranporth. Blowhole activity rather leisurely, with only occasional really loud whoomphs, though still quite a lot of minor activity, so there is constant interest.
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150414_r1-02 — Exactly same position as the first recording listed for there on 15 March. On small bare rock platform area set back a little from the cliff edges above the blowhole activity, so this recording is shielded from direct sound from the blowhole and other sea dramatics close by. This is the sort of soundscape that anglers who come down here would experience while not attending to their lines right there on the cliff edge. It's a strangely peaceful soundscape but always with a feel of slight menace. The blowhole sounds almost subterranean from here,the sea otherwise being relatively quiet, though with superficial ripplings.
The swell isn't as large as on that previous occasion, and the strange breathing-like hiss to the left occurs only on a few occasions — or rather, most of the time it was too quiet to hear unless you listened into the cleft that houses the hissing fissure. On three occasions a skylark is briefly heard. — 52' (+3dB*)
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150414_r2-01 — From a new position that I've wanted to try for some time, but it's so exposed that there are
not many occasions when it's really sensible to attempt recording there. It's a really exposed
little ledge on the absolute tip of the headland, a little lower down, and directly facing the
ejections of two of the three blowhole vents.
One of the latter is visible, ejecting in this direction, but is generally the least powerful and makes little sound (a soft and diffuse sort of roar), but all the ejections, including the weaker ones from the subsidiary vents, are heard from here with much greater clarity than in any of my other recordings of that blowhole, sounding quite disturbingly lifelike (i.e., with really good listening equipment), with some really impressive splashdowns! — 45' (+9dB*)
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Cornwall, sea
>> 21 Mar 2015 — Boscastle and Pentargon sea dramatics again, but with swell a bit less than
on 10 March, though still reasonably substantial, and the tide more or less out (spring tide)for
the Pentargon recordings.
2r — 52' — 29'
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150321_r1-01 — Pentargon Cove, north headland:
Well down on headland and round to the right, facing across the vestibule area of Beeny Cliff's most southern cave — the latter to right and waves coming in from left. Similar to the 10 March recording here (highly dramatic pandemonium), but a little less loud and violent. — 52' -
150321_r1-03 — Boscastle Harbour, opposite the blowhole.
For the first time I recorded the blowhole from this position, and it sounds quite a bit different from in my recordings from the cliff slope above it. Because it was spring tide conditions, the blowhole's activity was quite brief this time, though this didn't matter for current purposes because this recording fits well with the blowhole recording of 10 March to fill a CD. — 29'
Cornwall, sea
>> 15 Mar 2015 — Sea dramatics spectacular near Perranporth, Cornwall: the Shag Rock headland. Substantial swell, and tide fairly high.
1r — 1h:05
150315_r1-03 — Shag Rock headland, down on its tip area; the blowhole active. On small bare rock platform area set back a little from the cliff edges above the blowhole
activity, so this recording is shielded from direct sound from the blowhole and other sea dramatics
close by. This is the sort of soundscape that anglers who come down here would experience while not
attending to their lines right there on the cliff edge.
It's a strangely peaceful soundscape but always with a feel of slight menace. The blowhole sounds almost subterranean from here, the sea otherwise being relatively quiet, though with superficial ripplings and a general impression of writhing, and various generally rather quiet very deep thuds and rumbles are frequently heard / felt (only with listening equipment reproducing very low frequencies well), actually originating from just round the headland tip — see next item here.
One most extraordinary thing about this soundscape is a strange short breathing-like hiss that emanates from down in a cleft in the rock to the left each time the blowhole sounds (more or less to the right), giving it all a really eerie feel. — 65' (+3dB*)
Cornwall, sea
>> 10 Mar 2015 — Magnificent Boscastle (area) sea dramatics spectacular, with substantial
swell! Beeny Cliff deep cave boomings & pandemonium, Pentargon sea dramatics with cave
pandemonium, and Boscastle blowhole and its seaward aspect (my best recordings of those yet).
5r — 1h:31 — 48' — 51' — 48' — 41'
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Beeny Cliff, quite well down on southernmost headland:
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150310_r2-03 — From a slight craggy prominence, facing south, i.e., to left as one looks down the headland, and thus across the mouth of the Pentargon cove. Breakers (rather distant) are constantly rolling in from the right, into the cove, the larger ones really thundering — their far ends hitting the facing cliffs beyond, sometimes booming in caves there and also sending up big plumes of spray.
However, that's only part of the soundscape, because round to the right / behind in the recording you also periodically hear deep rumbles and booms from quite violent sea action in the mouth of a cave hidden by that very crag.
Periodically, especially when things are a bit quieter, you can just hear the raucous stilted Punch-and-Judy-style laughing calls of a distant group of guillemots on the facing cliff the other side of the cove. About 20' into the recording we hear the much more distinct sound of a group of oystercatchers having a noisy flyabout. — 91'
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150310_r1-05 — Similar, but lower down — actually exactly where I'd been having my lunch. There, it was closer to the rumbles and booms from the hidden sea dramatics to the right just round the crag. This time the recorder faces out to sea, so that the Pentargon Cove breakers are thundering by on the left, while the (stronger) rumbles and booms from the nearby hidden sea dramatics are ahead and to the right. You can still hear the distant guillemots at times. — 48'
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150310_r1-04 — Pandemonium time! A little further down and round on the rocks, to the right, and now looking
into the southernmost cave of Beeny Cliff, and closely witnessing a monstrous succession of
loud sea dramatics, with larger waves thundering in from the left, causing powerful
rebound waves out of the cave, which then hit further incoming waves and cause loud eruptions of
spray, with impressive splashdown sounds. In the close foreground there is a very pleasant quiet
trickling of, yes, a little trickle of run-off water; the tripod is standing almost in it. — 51'
(+6 or even 9dB*)
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The 'neck' of Penally Point, Boscastle Harbour, for the blowhole and its seaward aspect:
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150310_r1-06 — As close as I could safely put the recorder down the cliff slope, above the Boscastle blowhole.
After many of the booms and thuds you can hear the splashdown from the low-angle jet of spray. — 48' (+6dB*)
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150310_r2-04 — On the seaward side, on a slightly precarious cliff ledge, facing the seaward aspect of the blowhole — i.e., looking along the cliff rather than facing out to sea. Quite a sea pandemonium, with many booms and whoomphs. — 41'
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Cornwall, sea
>> 24 Nov 2014 — Shag Rock headland, nr Perranporth, Cornwall: laid-back blowhole activity at close quarters.
1r — 38'
141124_r2-02 — On tip of Shag Rock headland, on exposed clifftop ledge, quite close above the blowhole vents. Their activity is laid-back this time, with only a small number of more or less loud main-vent whoomphs, but the side-vents are very frequently giving a more sotto voce breathing-like sound — a quiet diffuse breathy 'roar'. A beautiful and relaxing soundscape, albeit always with that hint of menace… — 38'
Devon, sea, birds
>> 5 Nov 2014 — Beautiful sea sound patterns from clifftops east of Sidmouth, Devon, with some birds.
2r — 38' — 38'
Greatly peaceful and relaxing, yet full of interest! Two recordings
from quite high clifftops,of basically the same phenomenon. In each, the
breaking of waves is loudest at two well separated
spots on the beach below, so that we get a constantly changing pattern
of the wave breakings /drawbacks getting more into or out of step with
each other.
Because of the nature of these beaches, being shingle, the breaking and drawback sounds give a strong impression of a breathing of the landscape, and here, in each recording, we have a most beautiful interplay of two out-of-sync 'breathing' patterns.
A wide stereo separation in your playback system is required to get the best of these recordings. I was surprised at how much bird sound I was getting, seeing that it was November. The robin is the main bird to be actually singing at times, as distinct from just giving contact or alarm calls.
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141105_r1-01 — From
clifftop part-way down the coast path descent from Salcombe Cliff into
the Salcombe valley.
The recorder is facing obliquely seaward and to the left, i.e., over
Salcombe Mouth. The main wave-breaking sounds are from (a) immediately
below (a bit right of centre), hidden by the cliff
and so rather muffled, and (b) around and a little beyond Salcombe Mouth
(left). — 38'
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141105_r1-02 — From the seaward side of the Branscombe Humps, a little way west of Branscombe Mouth, near Beer. The recorder is facing seaward; one location of louder wave breakings is a little right of centre in the recording, while a usually slightly louder centre of the same activity is more distinctly to the left. Here and there one may notice transient quiet intrusions of a very low hum.
This doesn't appear to be from aircraft (as a result of which latter I'd had to cut out close to ¾ of the original version of this recording, which ran for almost 2 hours to allow for all those disturbances!), but is presumably from farm machinery in the vicinity of Branscombe Village,just the other side of the Branscombe Humps here.
When I returned to the landward side of the Humps to regain the coast path after finishing the recording, I was amazed at how much farm machinery noise was going on, and how effective the relatively small 'hump' had been in shielding me from almost all of that commotion. — 38'
Weather, birds — night, dawn
>> 19 Sep 2014 — Thunder and eventual rain, with robins singing, Exeter city centre (from my
bedroom window), pre-dawn / dawn.
1r — 57'
140919_r1-01+2 — Very slow approach of a vigorous storm with frequent lightning, but the approaching part gradually
petered out as it came, so that there were only a few reasonably close peals of thunder, with the
rain coming over once the local lightning activity had almost stopped. So, we have a lot of
'atmospheric' very distant thunder for the first nearly 25 minutes.The heavy rain doesn't last very
long, and then the rain gradually eases off, with the robins just starting to sing again by the
end. — 57'
Because of the dynamic range involved, this recording really needs to be
listened to at 6db louder than my normal playback level (right for reasonably realistic
reproduction of well recorded classical music for full symphony orchestra) — but that advice does not apply to people who routinely play their audio at unduly
loud levels!
Cornwall, sea
>> 3 Sep 2014 — Beeny Cliff, near Boscastle, Cornwall — gentle sea sound with the most
exquisite cave rumblings and boomings
4r — 1h:18 — 29' — 22' — 1h:18
Peaceful, yet powerful and majestic!
There are cave boomings and cave boomings. The alcove in Beeny Cliff, where the coast path is
diverted up and around to avoid the alcove's cliff edge, isn't just another booming cave, but a
real aristocrat, with style! Its soundscapes of rumblings and booms are truly majestic, even when
the swell is relatively small and the sounds are quiet.
The reason? — This is a whole large and deep cave system, with two tall and rather narrow cave entrances in the alcove and other cave entrances close by, which latter may or may not also be part of the same cave system. None of these is seen from the coast path above, but for some of my recordings, rather precariously I got a little way down on the south-west side of the alcove, where one has a view right into the two major cave entrances, and from where you hear a lot more booms and rumbling than from above on the clifftop or coast path.
The size and depth of the cave system results in a very reverberant quality to all booms and rumbles, and also a great depth of sound, with very low, 'feely', 'earthquaky' frequencies.
On this particular day, despite a really quite small swell, conditions conspired to give me wonderful long recordings of these beautiful soundscapes. The sound of sea breaking on the cliffs was minimal, so one could concentrate on the deeper sounds. The rumbles and booms sound rather like distant thunder, but much deeper, with a common centre frequency of about 30Hz, and a fair number considerably lower — and all with a truly delectable reverberance.
Actually, the tide was going out (from a quite high state) during the recording, so the booms mostly eased off during about the first half-hour, after which the rumbles continued, with more occasional and generally less strong booms — though there wasn't a clear distinction between the two types of sound, so that many of what I was thinking of as rumbles would most likely get described as booms by many people.
N.B. Most of these booms and rumbles are too low to
be audible from speakers that don't have a fully extended bass (reasonably full reproduction right
down to 20Hz). For example my main speakers, which undoubtedly have great and accurate sound
quality above the lower bass, reproduce almost nothing of these sounds. Fortunately I do get those
sounds well and indeed impressively reproduced, because I also use a carefully configured pair of
BK XLS200 subwoofers. High-grade headphones are best, though.
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140903_r1-01 — On cliff edge of alcove, with the caves themselves hidden below. The very deep rumbles come and go
with the waves, and are like a very slow breathing, punctuated now and again by the odd really deep
booms. — 78'
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140903_r1-02 — A similar position, but slightly back from the edge and with a grass hummock between it and the edge, so shielded from
direct sea sound and really exposing the rumbles and booms — a wonderful sound. The initial
recorder position was virtually totally shielded from the sound of the sea apart from the rumbles
and booms, which wasn't really what I was intending.
At about 4'11 into the recording I moved the recorder to what sounded to be a better position, and from there you can hear some gentle sea action below, though it's still usefully subdued. I removed the disturbed part of the recording, so that the very shielded first part fades into the more lively sounding remainder of the recording. — 29'
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140903_r2-01 — Down the SW side of the alcove, facing into the cave entrances, the recorder on what I'd
describe as a 'midi' tripod and so exposed to the sound of the sea at the foot of the cliff. — 22'
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140903_r2-02 — Virtually the same position down the SW side of the alcove, but on a mini-tripod and so shielded
from the most direct sea sound, thus making it easier to hear all the rumbles and booming. — 78'
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
Weather, birds — dawn
>> 19 Jul 2014 — Mild thunderstorm at dawn in Exeter city centre, with seagulls.
1r — 41'
140719_r1-01+02 — This starts with the very first faint grumbles of thunder that I could hear in the all-night recording I made, and then gives way to some moderately heavy rain (heavier for a minute or two), eventually with a few further more or less distant rumbles. The storm never came over really properly, all its lightning being on the approaching side and not coming overhead, although obviously the rain did, and the lightning activity not passing by or continuing in the receding direction (at least, as seen by me).
In July and August the seagulls here (both herring gull and lesser black-backed gull) are horrendously noisy, and although they do have a relatively quiet period in the early small hours, by dawn they are fully at it again, giving many city residents here a hard time with regard to getting sufficient sleep. They are thus a major player in this recording, and we get no other bird sounds to sweeten the pill as I had in my June thunderstorm recording. — 41'
Cornwall, sea, birds — night
>> 25 Jun 2014 — Cot Valley, a little south of Cape Cornwall, Cornwall — night session,
introducing me to Manx shearwaters — the 'Devil Bird'…
1r — 1h:26
140625_r1-01 — The 'Devil Bird'!
This is what I started hearing from about 00:30, while having little snoozes while lying looking up
at the stars from high up above the mouth of the Cot Valley. Surely these were the most weird and
disturbing sounds I'd ever heard in the 'natural world', and worthy of many a night hell scenario,
and really great for one like me who's evidently cleared his previously lifelong dread of being
alone in the dark! And what was making those weird strangled, almost coughing calls, as though in
the throes of an acute asthma attack and fighting for one's life?
I assumed it had to be a bird, because they were flying around, but, weirdly, this devilish sound happened only from about 00:30 to 02:30, in the darkest hours of the short midsummer night. I found out afterwards that the source of all this grotesquery was Manx shearwaters.
The recording is from close to my working-base vantage point for that night, high above the valley mouth, pointing obliquely seaward to focus better on the 'action',and I took the liberty to slightly amplify the recording to make the very quiet soundscape more usefully audible in ordinary domestic listening situations. A faint repeating low tone, presumably from a distant 'whistling' buoy out at sea can be heard in the earlier part of the recording, so adding to the 'atmosphere'. — 86'
Dartmoor, birds
>> 19 Jun 2014 — Teign Gorge overnight — a completely new type of (ad)venture (great for one
who has had an almost lifelong dread of being alone in the dark!). My first ever overnight session
gains me two spectacular completely separate long dawn choruses.
2r — 1h:56 — 2h:02
These recordings have a particular spaciousness because of the slight reverberation of every sound in the valley.
The small-hours recording of the River Teign from Sharp Tor (an excellent sleep-assist recording), which preceded these two recordings was superseded by a pair of recordings from the same spot in 2017, with superior sound.
-
140619_r2-01+02 — Dawn chorus, from Sharp Tor. — 116'
-
140619_r1-01+02 — Dawn chorus, from slightly to east of the highest point on the Hunter's Path (Hunting Gate),
with the River Teign much further below and thus very quiet indeed,though still giving a very
gentle continuous background rushing sound, and, likewise, most of the birds much more distant,
giving this chorus an amazingly huge, 'open' and panoramic character. — 122'
Dartmoor, birds, river
>> 18 Jun 2014 — Field by River Teign, just upstream from the Teign Gorge — wonderful
evening birds' chorus, with a gentle background sound from the River Teign.
2r — 37' — 41'
This was actually the beginning of the all-night session that is listed for 19th June.
-
140618_r1-01 — Bird chorus with blackbirds (a fair number of them) predominant. — 37'
-
140618_r1-02 — Bird chorus with jackdaws predominant, though with a chorus of rooks for a short while. — 41'
Cornwall, sea, birds
>> 17 Jun 2014 — Zawn Rinny, by Gwennap Head, near Land's End, Cornwall — Fulmars doing star
turns!
1r — 1h:06
-
140617_r1-01 — From Zawn Rinny, the same sheer gully at Gwennap Head where I'd previously
recorded: this time, with a very gentle sea so that you can hear the fulmars really well.
As previously, the calls of those fulmars that aren't directly visible are particularly reverberant. Upper
(landward) position. Other birds heard include herring gull, lesser black-backed gull, rock pipit, wren, rock dove or feral pigeon, jackdaw — 66'
Cornwall, sea, birds
>> 14 Jun 2014 — Gwennap Head, near Land's End, Cornwall — a jackdaw in a hole…
1r — 34'
140614_r1-01 — A real oddity! At Gwennap Head, with the recorder on the edge of and looking into an impressive
gaping hole in the ground, known as The Funnel, where the roof of a sea cave has fallen in and you can see boulders on the beach at the bottom, illuminated by daylight coming in the cave entrance.
Curiously, a jackdaw, sounding rather chough-like and therefore presumably a youngster, repeatedly
utters its call from deep within and thus sounding reverberant. Eventually others join in — maybe
at that point a parent has returned and some other youngsters there have got excited.
The sea is behind us and quite subdued and muffled, as the shape of the land here is shielding the recorder from the direct sea sound. Also, a fair amount of that sound that we do hear is actually echo on the bit of cliff face that is the wall of this deep hole. And then, to make this really atmospheric, we can hear, on and off, very quietly the eerie deep moaning sound of the 'whistle' on the Runnelstone buoy, out at sea.
Also adding 'atmosphere' are the occasional very distant-sounding reverberant men's voices from climbers calling out to each other on the spectacular Chair Ladder cliff buttress system. We don't hear their voices directly at all; what we hear is their echo within the hole, the sound of the voices having come in through the cave entrance at sea-level.
And as an additional layer of interest, much of the time we can hear a bumblebee in the foreground, busily foraging. — 34'
Weather, birds — night, dawn
>> 7 Jun 2014 — Thunderstorm, giving way to steady rain, then with blackbirds gaining
prominence as the rain dies out. Also, as ever (here), with seagulls periodically throughout.
1r — 1h:08
140607_r1-01 — Recorded in the small hours on my bedroom window sill, central Exeter, Devon, UK.
Thunderstorms are rare in Exeter, even compared with other parts of southern England, so, for me even a small thunderstorm is a sought-for item! Because it looked less unlikely than usual that at least some thunder would come within earshot this particular night, at bedtime I set up a recorder and let it run all night, so I could then go to sleep and not have the disturbance of wondering whether or not to get out of bed later on to set up the recorder.
In the event, I woke up about 3.15 a.m. BST and heard what I took to be the first distant slight rumble, but actually examination of the recording afterwards showed that the first audible hints of thunder came at about 2.55, while I was still firmly asleep. Initially I was delighted at that, for I love the sound of a really distant approaching thunderstorm, and about 15 to 20 minutes of menacing prologue would have greatly pleased me.
However, I had to cut out a fair bit of that prologue because of various disturbances from drunken rowdies who'd been spewing out of the various night clubs. Also, some bits had to be cut out because of some loud breathing of mine while I was still asleep! Nonetheless, with some intricate editing I managed to conserve some 12 minutes of that atmospheric lead-in.
The storm was actually fairly brief, and all the lightning appeared to be in-cloud, so the thunder comes in non-startling peals. Steady rain continues for a while after the thunder has passed away, with blackbirds (one of our most endearingly mellifluous bird species) noticing that it's dawn and doing their own star turn (along with the odd blue tit). Meanwhile seagulls (mostly herring gull, though with the odd lesser black-backed gull) are quite vocal throughout, except in the main part of the storm — but even then one can hear the shrill squealings from some herring gull chicks on a neglected and absurdly vegetated chimney just across the road. — 68' (extracted from all-night recording)
Cornwall, birds, sea
>> 16 May 2014 — Between Bude and Morwenstow, Cornwall, by the coast path — skylarks over
the clifftop fields, with a gentle surf rolling in below.
4r — 1h:01 — 43' — 40' — 35'
1–4 below represent two recording sessions about half a mile apart. In all four recordings the two recorders were facing inland to give prominence to the skylarks while reducing the sea prominence and also better capturing a gentle thundering from the surf (heard properly only on speaker systems with fully extended bass). As well as skylarks, the odd jackdaws and raven can be heard, and groups of linnets, which fly close to the ground, uttering rapid contact calls. 5 and 6 are surf recordings without significant input from birds.
-
140516_r1-01 — Skylarks, with gentle surf rolling in in the background. In this recording some of the surf is
heard directly, albeit behind the recorder, which latter was mounted by means of a GorillaPod on
the handle of my telescopic walking stick stuck into the ground. — 61'
-
140516_r2-01 — Skylarks, with gentle surf rolling in in the background. Recorder placed further back from cliff edge in a spot where it was well shielded from all direct sound from the sea 'action', so we hear just a delightful gentle sustained thundering roar in the background, against which the skylarks come out crystal-clear.
In order to raise the recorder a bit among the fairly long grass, in absence of a suitable length of tripod I used a Hama Mini-Tripod (very small), raised up a bit by placing it on my rucksack, which was lying on the grass. — 16'
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor
>> 15 Apr 2014 — By Hunter's Path, overlooking the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon — 'Extraordinary Chimes!' — recorded at the same spot as the last few times there. A particularly
oddball extravaganza of haunting and strange wind chimes combinations in a wonderfully spacious
natural soundscape.
4r — 38' — 38' — 38' — (38'+19')
On this occasion the wind was ideal for my purposes, and I got an
excellent mix of chimes activity in each recording. This time the larger chimes were Gypsy Mezzo
and Soprano plus the Chimes of Olympos, giving a really strange partially dissonant mix of tones.
The constant interplay of consonant and dissonant harmonies makes these recordings a particularly
fascinating and invigorating listen.
The dissonance effect sounds all the more strange because the Gypsy chimes (from Music of the Spheres) are tuned to their Gypsy scale in equal temperament (which is the standard Western type of tuning, but is artificial and limited in the resultant harmoniousness), whereas the Woodstock chimes, so I understand, are tuned to their scales in 'just' or 'natural' intonation (which is more normal in Eastern traditions, and is more harmonious to human consciousness).
This notices primarily with the Olympos chimes, certain of whose tubes sound way out of tune in this ensemble — not because they are really out of tune, but because of this difference of tuning system between the particular chimes from the two sources. However, while that would sound unacceptable, say, in a Western orchestra, in the case of the chimes the result has an intriguing beauty all of its own, in which the vibrations and 'beats' caused by the various supposed 'mismatches' hang there in the soundscape as objects of fascination and beauty in their own right.
Those three larger chimes were used in each of the four recordings, with smaller chimes added as follows:
-
140415_r1-01 — None — i.e., just the three larger chimes. — 38'
-
140415_r1-01-halfspeed — A half-speed extract from the above — 38'
-
-
140415_r1-02 — Polaris, Mercury. — 38'
-
140415_r1-02-halfspeed — A half-speed extract from the above — 38'
-
-
140415_r1-03 — Mars. — 38'
-
140415_r1-04 — Polaris, Mercury, Mars — 57'
-
140415_r1-04-halfspeed — A half-speed extract from the above —38'
-
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
-
Nature-Symphony 17 (The origin of lightning — Dialogue between a mountain and a poet). — 68'
-
Nature-Symphony 18 (Legend of the night and the day in the deep forest). — 47'
-
Nature-Symphony 32 (Splendour of the Perpetual Transmuter at work and play) — 66'
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor
>> 1 Apr 2014 — By Hunter's Path, overlooking the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon — yet
another 'Strange Chimes' session — this time in a bid to complete 'unfinished business' from my 19th
March session at the same spot. Another extravaganza of haunting and strange wind chimes
combinations in a wonderfully spacious natural soundscape
6r — 16' — 35' — 38' — 43' — 51' — 44'
This time my four smaller chimes sets (Pluto, Polaris, Mercury, Mars) were put together with the larger Chimes of Olympos in four combinations, each of the latter in its own way being exquisitely, hauntingly, beautiful. This time also, I took extra care to ensure that I had the most effective and 'musical' balance between the different chimes, and this enabled me to make good the errors and deficiencies from my 19 March session at the same spot. For the most part the chimes activity is gentle, with periods of more or less quiescence, though it does get a bit more frisky on a few occasions in the 5th recording.
-
140401_r1-01 — Birds, without chimes. — 16'
-
140401_r1-02 — Pluto, Polaris, Mercury — minimal chimes activity, so this is best regarded as 'birds with some chimes'. — 35'
-
140401_r1-03 — Pluto, Polaris, Mercury (again) — just enough chimes activity (all gentle) to call this 'chimes
with birds'. — 38'
-
140401_r1-03-halfspeed — A half-speed extract from the above. — 38'
-
-
140401_r1-04 — Mars — 38'
-
140401_r1-04-halfspeed — A half-speed extract from the above. — 39'
-
140401_r1-05 — Polaris, Mercury — 39'
-
140401_r1-05-halfspeed — A half-speed extract from the above. — 38'
-
-
140401_r1-06 — Polaris — 38'
-
140401_r1-06-halfspeed — A half-speed extract from the above. — 39'
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
Devon, sea, birds
>> 26 Mar 2014 — Three locations between Sidmouth and Beer, Devon — birds and sea. Each very
beautiful, peaceful and relaxing in its own way.
3r — 38' — 57' — 39'
-
140326_r1-01 — In the open woods high up on the Dunscombe Cliff slope of the Salcombe valley, overlooking that
valley and Salcombe Mouth. A chiffchaff is the ongoing star performer. The sea is quite distant, so
its sound seems rather muffled. — 38'
-
140326_r2-01 — On the lower clifftop forming the mouth of Lincombe, the valley scooped out of Dunscombe Cliff.
Again, chiffchaff is the most persistent bird to sing — often two or more of them. Again, the sea
is heard indirectly and so the sound is subdued, though it's much closer and thus more prominent
than in the first recording. — 38'
-
140326_r1-02 — On clifftop on seaward side of Branscombe Humps. Here only occasional birdsong is heard, but the sea sound has a particular interest. This is the only one of this day's three recordings in which the sea is heard directly and therefore a fair amount of detail can be heard in it. Because it's a shingle beach (albeit less shingly than usual there, thanks to the winter storms), you can hear not only each wave breaking, but the rough, granular sound of each draw-back between them.
The waves were coming in obliquely, its breaking moving from left to right, and consequently also the draw-back sound also travelling from left to right. However, that was only the overall pattern,and so there was a very satisfying unpredictability as to exactly where one would hear the next drawback or breaking wave sound. This sounds particularly beautiful with really well separated speakers. — 38'
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor, birds
>> 19 Mar 2014 — By Hunter's Path, overlooking the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon — a
different 'Strange Chimes' session! Another extravaganza of haunting and strange wind chimes
combinations in a wonderfully spacious natural soundscape, this time with a lot of springtime
birdsong — and a concurrent long recording of the birds without any chimes sound at all.
7r — 47' — 43' — 41' — 39' — 38' — 28' — 1h:17
This time my four smaller chimes sets (Pluto, Polaris, Mercury, Mars) were put together with the larger Chimes of Olympos and Gregorian Chimes (Tenor), in various combinations.
Actually, things weren't really straightforward for me over this session. For one thing, the wind wasn't really as strong as had been forecast or indeed as what I was aiming for, and indeed there really wasn't enough wind at all for what I wanted till towards midday. For this reason certain of the recordings are really 'birds with gentle wind chimes sounds (on and off)'.
Also, I didn't get the chimes balance completely as I was after — though, generally speaking, the balance was still acceptable, there being no precise right or wrong about this. And then, as part of that issue, really the small chimes were a bit closer to the recorder than would have been ideal, and this led to the non-musical tapping sound of the strikers, particularly of the Mercury and Mars chimes, being intrusively loud, particularly in recording 6 as listed below.
Another issue for me was that the sound of these combinations, although exquisitely beautiful, was musically not what I'd been expecting, and indeed in some cases was something that I wasn't keen on (actually sounding sentimental!) — though mitigated by the overall soundscape, with so many birds pronouncing their springtime territories.
-
140319_r1-02 — Birds, with gentle chimes (all of them): Gregorian, Olympos, Pluto, Polaris, Mercury, Mars. — 47'
-
140319_r1-03 — The same combination, their action mostly gentle, but enough for this recording to be described
as 'chimes with birds' rather than 'birds with chimes'. — 39'
-
140319_r1-03-halfspeed — Half-speed extract from above.
Note that in this case the octave-lower pitch resulting from the half-speed has caused a dramatic change in emotional effect. Instead of a complex, apparently bright and optimistic atmosphere, we have a complex intensely serious melancholy and longing (i.e., of an elemental, archetypal character rather than the expression of any individual's emotion). —38'
-
-
140319_r1-04 — Chimes (Olympos, Pluto, Polaris, Mercury, Mars) with birds. — 41'
-
140319_r1-04-halfspeed — Half-speed extract from above. —38'
-
-
140319_r1-05 — Chimes (Gregorian, Pluto, Polaris, Mercury, Mars) with birds. — 39'
-
140319_r1-05-halfspeed — Half-speed extract from above. —38'
-
140319_r1-06 — Chimes (Gregorian, Olympos, Pluto, Polaris, Mercury) with birds. — 38'
-
140319_r1-06-halfspeed — Half-speed extract from above. —38'
-
-
140319_r1-08 — Birds with very gentle chimes (Olympos, Mars). — 28'
-
140319_r2-01 — Birds, with no chimes — a wonderful broad panorama overlooking the Teign Gorge, this recording made concurrently with the chimes ones (but completely out of earshot of them). — 77'
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
-
Nature-Symphony 29 (Fragile eternity of an early springtime sunrise) —
-
Nature-Symphony 30 (Mother Nature telling springtime melancholia not to be so silly!) —
-
Nature-Symphony 61 (Steely-wiry sunrise echoes in a dark and rocky mountain forest) —
-
Nature-Symphony 62 (Shifting colours of the deep forest trail, with lurking bears) — 45'
Cornwall, sea, birds
>> 12 Mar 2014 — On the stretch of coast from Gwennap Head to Land's End, Cornwall — two
pairs of truly spectacular sea recordings, with a swell rather larger than for my recordings there
of 5 June 2013, and also a high tide to start with, and still higher than previously for the final
pair of recordings. Also, for all 4 recordings I managed to use taller tripods than previously in
these particular spots, so getting a more accurate sound.
4r — 57' — 54' — 1h:08 — 1h:07
-
At Gwennap Head, on the grassy terrace traversing the south-east side of Zawn Rinny, the
sheer-sided cliff gully where I recorded twice last year. This time the waves were surging into the
end of the narrow channel at the bottom of the gully, with a heavy resonant deep boom as each hit
the end; very likely there is a cave there, though one can't safely look down and round to find out
about that. To add considerable interest, pairs of fulmars were on various ledges on the sheer
cliff face in the gully, uttering their weird clucking / cackling sounds.
-
140312_r1-01 — Near the top end of the terrace, so getting most emphasis on the sound in the gully, and getting
a quite close perspective on some of the fulmars. — 57'
-
140312_r2-01 — Further down along the terrace and facing obliquely across the gully and into its landward end
(i.e., where the booming is happening. This catches the very low frequencies of the booms and
various deep rumbles more strongly, so making it in some ways more spectacular than the above
recording, but the fulmars are more distant and all sounding fairly reverberant, so you don't
usually hear a lot of detail in their sound. — 54'
-
-
On the north clifftop of Pordenack Point, overlooking Zawn Wells and the iconic rock islands Enys Dodnan and the Armed Knight, with Land's End just beyond. The recorders were placed in similar positions to those of the 5 June 2013 recordings. This time the sea dramatics were even more spectacular, with much deep thundering and booming — and also with an unexpected addition: the Longships foghorn!
Sadly, this isn't the deep, atmospheric sound that I'd really like to get in some recordings, but a fairly high-pitched tone. Nonetheless, it does create an interesting 'atmosphere' of its own, emphasizing the odd contradiction, in this heavy swell thundering / booming here even though the weather was settled and quiet with very little wind, and indeed with patches of sea fog. I wouldn't generally make recordings containing this foghorn sound, but on this occasion the sea sound was so powerful that it kept the foghorn very much in the background.
-
140312_r1-02 — Upper position, more closely overlooking Zawn Wells (though the loudest sea action was against
the cliffs just the other side) — 68'
-
140312_r2-02 — Lower position, a bit further towards Pordenack Point, rather obliquely facing the line of
cliffs the other side of Zawn Wells. As well as the action heard from the higher position, the
recorder here picked up stronger booms and deep thundering from immediately below, and for some
reason the fog horn tends to be often rather more audible. — 67'
-
Cornwall, sea
>>> 11 Jan 2014 — More sea dramatics at Shag Rock, Perranporth: just to the south-west of, and way down on the tip of, the Shag Rock headland — still more powerful sea
dramatics.
— Meet the Shag Rock blowhole — close-up!
1r — 41'
140111_r2-02 — A first for me, and a real corker! — From way down on the very
steep Shag Rock headland itself, on exciting and precarious steep rocky terrain, right on the tip
of the headland overlooking the notch to the outlying abrupt rock, and thus directly, closely,
overlooking the blowhole dramatics. The deep, heavy blowhole whoomphs repeatedly sent clouds of
fine sea spray higher than I was, but fortunately drifting away from me and the recorder. Arguably
my most powerful sea recording yet! — 41'
Because of the dynamic range
involved, this recording really needs to be listened to at 6db louder than my normal playback level
(right for reasonably realistic reproduction of well recorded classical music for full symphony
orchestra). That represents a doubling of the sound level.
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor
>> 2 Jan 2014 — By Hunter's Path, overlooking the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon — 'Strange Chimes'! Another, different, extravaganza of haunting and strange wind chimes combinations
in a wonderfully spacious natural soundscape.
3r — 46' — 49' — 51'
Three recordings from the same position as on 10 Dec 2013. Only three,
because forecast heavy rain by the end of the afternoon made it sensible to make it only a short
recording session this time, and then to beat a hasty retreat in order to minimize the chances of a
bedraggled hitch-hike back to base.
The chimes used were the same as on that previous occasion, except that the Gypsy chimes were replaced by Bamboo chimes (large and small set). Another difference was that it was rather more windy this time — to such an extent that the chimes were often really thrashing about in the wind, and I was doubting whether the recordings would be worth keeping. In the event, however, the recordings, although overall tending to be somewhat hyperactive, still came out beautifully.
Also, because I recorded for significantly longer than the duration that I'd use for commercial CDs, this meant that I could be selective in reducing the length of each recording to make worthwhile CD compilations. That is, I could give priority to cutting out some of the over-active parts while seeking to avoid cutting out the moments of quietude and the odd interesting bird sounds, so that the end results would make a more satisfying and unstressful listen, while still faithfully representing the overall range of sound that I was getting in this particular day's session.
As already intimated, the bamboo chimes were used in all three recordings, and the combinations with Woodstock chimes were as follows:
-
140102_r1-01 — Chimes of Pluto, Polaris, Mercury, Mars. — 46'
-
140102_r1-01-halfspeed — Half-speed extract from above. —38'
-
-
140102_r1-02 — Chimes of Pluto, Polaris, Mercury. — 49'
-
140102_r1-02-halfspeed — Half-speed extract from above. —38'
-
-
140102_r1-03 — Nothing. That is, the bamboo chimes on their own. — 51'
You might well think that the bamboo chimes on their own wouldn't sound very interesting, but the truth is that once they're on their own you really hear their own tuning, containing a strong element of the whole tone scale. The considerable pitch difference between the large and small set makes it all sound particularly interesting, and the interval of the tritone is particularly emphasized. It's a truly lovely sound, even though being dry and earthy in marked contrast to the ethereal refinement of the metal chimes that I use.
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor
>> 10 Dec 2013 — By Hunter's Path, overlooking the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon — 'Strange Chimes'! An extravaganza of haunting and strange wind chimes combinations in a wonderfully
spacious natural soundscape.
6r — 1h:29 — 44' — 44' — 36' — 41' — 1h:17
One of those rare extra-special days when everything came together
just right to fulfil a particularly ambitious aim that had particularly stiff requirements. That
day I went out loaded with no less than SIX sets of wind chimes, to record together in one great
ensemble, pitting the smaller chimes that I'd obtained in the spring against both the Gypsy chimes.
A fairly unlikely tree configuration was required for this, to enable me to get the right sound
level balance between the respective chimes and each other, as well as with the natural soundscape
itself.
The only thing that was slightly 'off' was that the Mercury chimes really needed to be still closer to the recorder, and ideally the Gypsy chimes would have been a bit still further away, but the result is still something of a 'corker'.
And then, to cap it all, I got a whole lot more strange and wonderful recordings! Actually the wind was easing down during the session, so that recording 4 and especially 5 are a very different experience, with little chimes animation and indeed much quiescence where we are left with the natural soundscape more or less in its purely natural form. Mother Nature kindly provided a flyabout of a pair of ravens in the first two recordings, and a local friendly farmer provided the cows that distantly moo here and there in the recordings and indeed render an actual chorus for us in recording 5!
ALL the recordings include the Gypsy Mezzo and Soprano chimes, which are combined with other chimes as follows:
-
131210_r1-01 — Chimes of Pluto, Polaris, Mercury, Mars — 89' (40' on Freesound)
-
131210_r1-01-halfspeed — Half-speed extract from above. — 40'
-
-
131210_r1-02 — Chimes of Polaris, Mars. Includes a lovely passage in which a pair of ravens are doing a flyabout. — 44'
-
131210_r1-03 — Chimes of Mars. — 44'
-
131210_r1-04 — Chimes of Polaris. Wind has dropped considerably, so this is haunting and 'atmospheric', with a repeatedly emphasized deliciously dissonant interval (major seventh and ditto plus octave) — 36'.
-
131210_r1-04 — Half-speed version of part of above. Timeless, haunting and 'atmospheric'; the long relatively quiescent periods often having that dissonant interval almost silently hanging over the Teign Gorge like the unanswered question of all time… — 38'
-
131210_r1-05 — Chimes of Pluto, Polaris, Mercury. Wind has dropped further, so there are many interludes of chimes quiescence, which actually give a particularly magical effect when the chimes do sound. Includes an episode with a distant chorus of cow moos! 'Continuity' sound is the River Teign far below in the valley bottom, with the odd bird calls. — 40'
-
131210_r2-01 — Special bonus: a concurrent recording that I left to run through the above five chimes sessions, capturing the chimes distantly, and so with more emphasis on the natural soundscape itself — particularly 'atmospheric'! I have extracted from the 4-hour-plus recording a full CD's 'concentrate', which contains 5 tracks representing the respective chimes sessions, but playing without a break. — 4h:05, condensed to 77' for the CD.
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
-
Nature-Symphony 15 (December rural afternoon quietude). — 63'
-
Nature-Symphony 28 (The mountaineer's 'Poem of Ecstasy') — 52'
-
Nature-Symphony 52 (The sound of one mountain applauding its climbers) — 65'
-
Nature-Symphony 56 (Awaiting, awaiting… —
Watchman, what of the night?
) — 58' -
Nature-Symphony 58 (Anticipation, eruption, remembering, remembrance) —37'
-
Nature-Symphony 58 (Magnificent mountain of three glaciers towering) — 63'
Weather
>> 28 Sep 2013 — Gentle (sounding) dawn rain with thunder and some quiet birds
1r — 43'
130928_r1-01 — Recorded from my second-floor bedroom window in central Exeter, Devon, UK, from 7.0 a.m.,
starting when it was still fairly dark. As it was a Saturday, traffic and people noise was actually
much less than at that time on a weekday, and, with some editing, I was able to get a really
clean-sounding recording, the only discernible traffic noise being very distant and faint during
the lull in the rain; on the basis of listening alone it would be well-nigh impossible to guess
that this was recorded in a city centre or indeed anywhere urban at all.
The birds are all more or less distant, and are robin and eventually herring gull.
The rain was actually quite heavy, but from the particular viewpoint its hissiness is subdued and so it sounds soft and gentle; the louder water noise is actually the trickling of roof run-off water in nearby drainpipes, plus, for a time, the splattering from a blocked roof gutter. The peals of thunder were all very genteel and un-frightening, making this overall a peaceful and relaxing experience. Needs playing volume 9dB higher than a normal sensible level. — 43'
Wind Chimes, Cornwall, sea
>> 26 Jul 2013 — From clifftop slope of the WNW cliffs of Pordenack Point, SSE of Land's End — wind chimes with sea and birds
3r — 37' — 37' — 35'
The chimes sound here is more 'forward' than I was aiming for — especially the Mars chimes — but it wasn't possible to position any of the chimes further from the recorder, so the recording balance was fixed. The sea and birds, therefore, take very much of a backstage perspective. Initially I did think of discarding these recordings because of this, especially in the light of the shrill nature of the sound of the Mars and Mercury chimes, which need listening to at a very modest volume in order for them not to be really fatiguing to listen to for long periods. However, with the level of these recordings set to a modest level, they very much hold their own as immensely beautiful and intriguingly musical experiences.
In 2023 I reluctantly decided not to upload any of these to Freesound because of those penetrating shrill upper notes of the Mars and Mercury chimes.
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130726_r1-01 — Chimes of Pluto + Mars + Mercury — 37'
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Half-speed extract from above. —30'
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130726_r1-02 — Chimes of Pluto + Mars. — 37'
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130726_r1-03 — Chimes of Pluto + Mercury. — 35'
Wind Chimes, Cornwall, sea
>> 17 Jul 2013 — On bare and rugged clifftop prominence by Levant tin mine ruins, Pendeen,
Penwith, Cornwall, overlooking Trewellard Zawn to Pendeen Watch — sea and wind chimes:
3r — 43' — 37' — 51'
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130717_r1-01 — Chimes of Pluto + Chimes of Polaris + Chimes of Mercury + Chimes of Mars (recorder facing sea, with chimes behind / beside it) — 43'
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130717_r1-02 — The same, but with recorder facing away from the sea, so as to be facing the chimes. — 37'
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130717_r1-02-halfspeed — Half-speed extract from above. — 30'
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130717_r1-03 — Same as 2., but minus the Chimes of Mars. Pure pentatonic scale now. — 51'
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130717_r1-03-halfspeed — Half-speed extract from above. —
Wind Chimes, Cornwall, sea
>> 10 Jul 2013 — The Lizard, Cornwall — Bumble Rock headland, by Lizard Point — sea (rather
choppy but with no obvious swell) and wind chimes
3r — 37' — 43' — 31'
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130710_r1-01 — Chimes of Polaris + Chimes of Mars — 37'
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130710_r1-03 — Chimes of Pluto + Chimes of Mars — 43'
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130710_r1-04 — Chimes of Mercury + Chimes of Mars — 31'
Wind Chimes, Cornwall, sea
>> 7 Jul 2013 — Clifftop between Pendeen Watch and the Levant Mine ruins, Penwith, Cornwall — sea (modest swell) on rocks, with wind chimes
2r — 55' — 40'
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130707_r1-01 — Chimes of Mercury — 55'
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130707_r2-01 — Chimes of Mars — 40'
Wind Chimes, Cornwall, sea
>> 1 Jul 2013 — Boscastle, Cornwall — Willapark headland and Firebeacon Hill
4r — 23' — 34' — 12' — 54'
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Willapark headland, west-facing crag-tops — wind chimes:
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130701_r1-02 — Chimes of Polaris, Chimes of Mercury — 23'
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130701_r2-02 — Chimes of Polaris, Chimes of Mars — 34'
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130701_r2-03 — Chimes of Pluto, Chimes of Mercury, Chimes of Mars — 12' (so short because the wind started blowing over the tripods suspending the chimes, so I abandoned recording there!)
-
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Firebeacon Hill, on north-east side of top of headland just SSW of the Ladies' Window, facing over a small but deep sea inlet, to Short Island and the Ladies' Window:
130701_r2-04 — Chimes of Polaris, Chimes of Mercury, the sea sound including some modest deep booms and rumbles from sea caves in the cliffs — 54'
Cornwall, sea, birds
>> 26 Jun 2013 — Clifftops SSE of Land's End, Penwith, Cornwall — with choughs.
3r — 1h:04 — 51' — 18'
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130626_r1-01 — On clifftop beside the rock island Enys Dodnan, facing it. A gentle sea but still with a good
amount of interest in its arguments with the cliffs. Starts with a family group of choughs, who
then fly off to Land's End but some 35 minutes later return and treat us to some of their antics.
Other birds of note include great black-backed gull, jackdaw, rock pipit, and of course the
ubiquitous herring gull. A beautiful recording — 64'
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130626_r2-01 — Recorded concurrently with the above, a little distance further away from Land's End, and facing
the taller cliffs that lead to Pordenack Point. The same bird species, including some late chough
entertainment, but the sea sound is a bit more dramatic — 51'
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130626_r1-02 — A little further SSE, in the cliff alcove formed by the south cliff of the Carn Les Boel headland, overlooking Bosistow Island — a granite rock island with some very vocal herring gulls, one great black-backed gull (with young), a hint of a razorbill, some jackdaws and, yes, what sounds like some choughs briefly sounding off — except that I think it's juvenile jackdaws! — 18'
Cornwall, Wind Chimes, sea, birds
>> 25 Jun 2013 — Boscastle, Cornwall — Firebeacon Hill — Wind chimes, and seabirds breeding
colony
2r — 39' — 27'
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130625_r1-02 — On Firebeacon Hill, on its headland just SSW of the Ladies' Window: wind chimes (Chimes of Mars,
first use), with somewhat muted sea and birds (muted because of recorder placement). It sounds
strange and very special! — 39'
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130625_r1-03 — Also on Firebeacon Hill, but on seaward steep spur of the Ladies' Window headland — birds on
Short Island, a rock island fairly narrowly separated from the mainland. Lots of herring gull, but
also quite a bedlam of other seabirds, including some very obvious guillemots (really weird and
hilarious sound!), with a hint of the odd razorbill. A very beautiful and evocative soundscape.
More's the pity that I was too inexperienced then to record that soundscape for an hour or more as
I learnt to later on for any really worthwhile soundscape! — 27'
Wind Chimes, Cornwall, sea
>> 19 Jun 2013 — Aire Point, just north of Whitesand Bay, Sennen, Penwith, Cornwall
1r — 41'
130619_r2-01 — Sea (small swell) and Chimes of Polaris plus Chimes of Pluto. Very beautiful, this combination
of chimes being every bit as radiant and 'rainbow colour' as I had expected — 41'
Cornwall, Wind Chimes, sea
>> 5 Jun 2013 — Gwennap Head to Land's End, Cornwall — Sea (and wind chimes in 3)
4r — 38' — 39' — 1h:01 — 1h:17
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130605_r1-04 — Surf breaking on beach and often hitting cliffs, at Nanjizal Bay (Mill Bay),
between Gwennap Head and Land's End, from clifftop to right of stream (facing sea) (sounds more
thunderous than the other recording from this location) — 38'
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130605_r2-01 — Ditto, from lower clifftop to left of stream. — 39'
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130605_r1-05 — Surf breaking thunderously in Zawn Wells, a narrow cove and cliff gully (and hitting cliffs and
big rocks!) close to Land's End, with Chimes of Polaris — 61'
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130605_r2-02 — Ditto, without chimes, and sounding a tad more thunderous — 77'
The latter two recordings are really spectacular when listened to with high quality equipment with good stereo separation.
Cornwall, Wind Chimes, sea, birds
>> 1 Jun 2013 — Between Tintagel and Boscastle, Cornwall — Sea, wind chimes and birds
1r — 44'
130601_r1-02 — On clifftop ledge of Firebeacon Hill minor headland just SW of Ladies' Window, facing Long
Island, with Chimes of Polaris. — 44'
Dartmoor, Wind Chimes, birds
>> 26 May 2013 — Dartmoor, Devon — From out on the open moor — birds (and wind chimes in 3rd
recording)
3r — 1h:02 — 50' — 58'
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130526_r1-01 — In Taw valley, a little upstream from Belstone, from lower slope of Belstone Tors (quiet and
very beautiful, with the odd cuckoo here and there) — 62'
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130526_r2-01 — Ditto, different position, with steep boulder slope behind, and pointing more upstream — 50'
Dartmoor, birds
>> 18 May 2013 — Dartmoor — Birds and background river in Taw valley a little upstream from
Belstone (my first recordings in which cuckoos have appeared!)
3r — 37' — 21' — 39'
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130518_r1-01 — On top of mossy drystone wall in lightly wooded stretch of valley bottom — 37'
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130518_r2-01 — Ditto, about 75 metres further along — 21'
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130518_r1-02 — Well up on the very bouldery lower slopes of Belstone Tors, overlooking where the above two recordings were made. Very quiet, all birds being more or less distant, and a real sense of being perched high up and overlooking a big panorama. — 39'
Dartmoor, birds
>> 6 May 2013 — Powerful solitude on remotest Dartmoor — skylarks on Cut Hill
4r — 37' — 24' — 15' — 22'
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130506_r1-01 — Among the peat hags on top of Cut Hill — skylarks and wind — 37
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130506_r2-01 — Ditto, different position, less sheltered, and with the wind blowing through small clumps of rushes nearby — 24'
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130506_r1-02 — Ditto, no rushes but the rustling of dead remains of last year's growth of purple moor grass in the stronger wind gusts — 15'
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130506_r2-02 — Ditto, different position, and facing different direction — 22'
130506_r1-01+02+r2-01+02 — I've made a compilation file of all four recordings strung end-to-end…
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
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Nature-Symphony 26 (Celebration of skylarks, wind and the unknown) — This uses 130506_r1-01. — 61'
Devon, sea, birds
>> 30 Apr 2013 — Hooken undercliff, next to Branscombe landslip
2r — 54' — 18'
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130430_r1-03 — From tree by coast path, facing Hooken Cliff: birds, with fulmars and ravens prominent on /
around the cliff, and the sound of waves breaking on the pebble beach sending echoes passing from
left to right along the cliff — 54'
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130430_r2-03 — Ditto, from tree some 75 metres further down to SW, with rather louder sea sound — 18'
Dartmoor, birds, running water
>> 20 Apr 2013 — Powerful solitude on remotest Dartmoor — skylarks by Black Ridge Brook and
on Cut Hill
4r — 34' — 41' — 27' — 6'
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130420_r1-01 — By Black Ridge Brook beside Little Kneeset: skylarks and the odd meadow pipit with background
muted water sound; the recorder was sheltered from the quite stiff breeze by a boulder, and this,
together with the recorder's very low height off the ground, shielded it from the most direct sound
from the stream. — 43'
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130420_r2-01a — Ditto, different position, simultaneous with 1. — 34'
For compilation of these two recordings…
These two recordings have been strung together as one file at Freesound… -
130420_r2-01b — Black Ridge Brook, with only the odd hint of skylarks and meadow pipit audible. This is concurrent with later part of 2. It's a fairly close direct recording of the stream, where the latter is tumbling over a few boulders. — 27'
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130420_r2-02 — On top of Cut Hill: skylarks. So short because clouds came in and the skylarks rapidly gave up
singing. Here more than in any of my skylarks recordings the silence underlines the remoteness and
solitude. — 6'
Dartmoor, running water, birds
>> 19 Apr 2013 — Tumbling streams in north-west Dartmoor valley woods and copses, with some
birds
6r — 34' — 42' — 37' — 16' — 21' — 23'
East Okement valley — wooded steep-sided section of valley
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130419_r1-01 — In wooded steep-sided part of valley
Well up west side: birds, with the East Okement River tumbling over boulders below — 34' -
130419_r1-02 — Ditto, but a little further upstream and less high up the valley side — 42'
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130419_r2-01 — Simultaneous with 2., but by the river, so this is a recording of the river tumbling over boulders with only a little bird sound to be heard — 37'
Still in East Okement valley but out on open moor just above where the river enters the wooded section
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130419_r2-02 — Close by river, but facing up the open valley side: birds, with fairly strong water sound in background, with lovely singing from a mistle thrush just the other side of the river. — 16'
In the lowest part of the Black-a-ven Brook tributary valley, much more out in open moorland but with some trees lining the south side of this tributary valley
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130419_r1-04 — Moderately close to the Black-a-ven Brook, sheltered by clumps of rushes: sound of the brook plus wind in the rushes, plus a chaffinch — 21'
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130419_r2-03 — A bit closer to the Black-a-ven Brook (recorder shielded from most of its direct sound), and a little more upstream, A single chaffinch relatively close-by but it appears to be interacting with others that are only just audible through the stream sound — 23'
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor, birds, wind
>> 15 April 2013 — High up in woods above Fingle Bridge, Teign Gorge — birds, then various wind chimes
combinations and solos in increasingly windy conditions
10r — 26'— 5' — 30' — 29' — 42' — 35' — 30' — 34' — 32' — 32'
By Hunter's Path, in woods above Fingle Bridge, Teign Gorge
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130415_r1-01 — Birds — 26'
Wind chimes, with birds and increasing windiness:
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130415_r1-02a — Olympos, close — 5'
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130415_r1-02b — Olympos, rather distant — 30'
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130415_r1-03 — Olympos (new position) — 29'
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130415_r1-04 — Pluto — 42'
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130415_r1-05 — Pluto + Gypsy Soprano (needs +6dB playback volume) — 35'
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130415_r1-06 — Ditto, distant — 30'
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130415_r1-07 — Olympos + Gypsy Soprano (weird!) (needs +3 to 6dB playback volume) — 34'
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130415_r1-08 — Olympos + Gregorian (needs +3dB playback volume) — 32'
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130415_r1-09 — Pluto + Olympos + Gregorian — 32'
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
Cornwall, sea
>> 6 Apr 2013 — Alcove in Beeny Cliff, between Crackington Haven and Boscastle, Cornwall — gentle very deep regular rumbling booms from sea cave below.
1r — 32'
130406_r1-01 — To me this recording feels to be too short! Recorded during a hike lunch stop. This was my first
experience of the wonderful sounds from this magnificent sea cave system.
Although on this occasion the sound on the clifftop is quiet and gentle, it has an unusual and beautiful — even haunting — aspect, with the rumbles sounding eerily like a very slow and deep breathing — indeed snoring! — 32'
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor, running water
>> 5 Mar 2013 — Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon — Hunter's Path, then Hunter's Tor, and
finally beside the River Teign immediately upstream of the steep-sided part of the valley — Wind
chimes and birds.
8r — 16' — 29' — 30' — 10' — 27' — 49' — 23' — 15'
Chimes were Bamboo (large + small), Gypsy (Mezzo + Soprano), and Pluto. My first set of recordings beginning to get a satisfying amount of early spring bird sound mixing in with the chimes.
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130305_r1-01 — Birds high up in woods above Fingle Bridge, with River Teign far below, from by Hunter's Path — 16'
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130305_r1-03 — Wind Chimes — Bamboo, Gypsy Mezzo & Soprano chimes — and birds, from by Hunter's Path — 29'
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130305_r1-03-halfspeed — Part of same, half-speed — 30'
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130305_r1-04 — Distant wind chimes — Bamboo, Pluto, Gypsy Mezzo & Soprano chimes — and birds, from by Hunter's Path (position 1) — Here we really begin to hear how mysterious and melancholy the Gypsy chimes sound at a distance. — 30'
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130305_r1-05 — Distant Wind Chimes — Bamboo, Gypsy Mezzo & Soprano chimes — and birds, from by Hunter's
Path, Teign Gorge (position 2) — Much further removed from the chimes, the recorder is sitting on a
tree branch surrounded by twigs with still-attached dead leaves, so this is a great wind recording,
with the very distant Gypsy chimes coming in and out of focus — to me a tremendously beautiful and
haunting recording, and I only wish I'd hung on and recorded this for a full half-hour! — 10'
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130305_r1-06 — River Teign from south end of Hunter's Tor, Teign Gorge — 27'
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130305_r1-09 — River Teign and birds in early spring — 49'
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130305_r1-10 — River Teign with wind chimes (Pluto, Gypsy Mezzo & Soprano) and birds — A particularly
'sweet' combination and balance, with relatively gentle chimes sound. — 23'
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130305_r1-10-halfspeed — Half-speed version of part of same — 38'
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130305_r1-11 — River Teign with wind chimes (Gypsy Mezzo & Soprano) and birds — The wind was easing down, and the chimes activity is subdued, but the river and birds maintain interest. — 15'
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor, running water
>> 18 Feb 2013 — In the Teign Gorge (Hunter's Tor) and by the River Teign just upstream from
the steep-sided part of the valley — wind chimes, some birds, and of course the River Teign.
5r — 26' — 1h:15 — 9' — 23' — 33'
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At Hunter's Tor — fairly windy
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130218_r1-01 — Bamboo chimes (large + small). — 26'
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130218_r1-02+03 — Ensemble of wind chimes — Bamboo (large + small), Pluto, Gypsy Mezzo & Soprano chimes. Yes, a
whole and indeed long CD's worth in just one recording! A quite spectacular, exhilarating and
challenging major 'symphony' of five sets of wind chimes and wind, with background water sound, and
with three completely different musical scales variously pitted against or working with each other. — 75'
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130218_r1-02+03-halfspeed — Half-speed version of part of latter recording; really haunting! — 48'
The following four versions are processed variants of the above (all the same duration) in a cathedral, with progressive increments of the strength of that effect (read, effective distance from the listener).
More beautiful than any palace!
Each in its own way has a hauntingly beautiful quality that has been described as exceptionally deeply inspired and even 'genius' (no, the latter not by me!
),
and has a sense of some compelling and purposeful underlying storyline.
For a deeply aware and sensitive person any of these are likely to be a really
strong and inspiring musical experience. I give just one link here for the relevant 'pack' (read, 'playlist') at Freesound: -
130218_r1-02+03-halfspeed-cath-close — This cathedral version has the chimes placed in quite close foreground,
so they sound relatively 'dry', but with a fairly subtle degree of
cathedral reverberation filling the background. This is like what I
experienced in or close to the public performance area in Exeter
Cathedral when I was singing in Exeter choirs many years ago. We have
the clarity of the original half-speed version, but with a sense of
greater depth and enhanced beauty that seems to enhance that clarity. It
already has more sense of some underlying purpose or story that it's
seeking to tell.
-
130218_r1-02+03-halfspeed-cath-distance+1 — Here the ensemble is somewhat further back, so that the reverberations are more obvious.
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130218_r1-02+03-halfspeed-cath-distance+2 — This is where the ensemble is far enough away that the reverberations
start to dominate the overall sound. There's much less sense of the
original natural soundscape, and one has entered another world entirely.
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130218_r1-02+03-nature-sym1 — The ensemble is now as far away as I'd have it. The effect is freakily
other-worldly, with the chimes now not really recognisable as wind
chimes — the metal ones sounding like a spooky distant organ, and the
bamboo chimes suggestive of some of Harry Partch's home-made bamboo
percussion instruments. Because we've left-behind the sense of the
original natural soundscape, it now seems that musicians are playing the
instruments in complex probabilistic patterns, much as Iannis Xenakis
achieved in many of his works. One big difference between his and my
approach is that, generally speaking, he often created probabilistic
structuring that emulated aspects of 'Mother Nature', while I've allowed
the latter to be my starting point and indeed the probabilistic
processes generator.
That description may suggest a dry and academic work, but the reality is that for any deeply aware and sensitive person this particular sort of objective, probability-determined 'auto-structuring' opens up deeply inspiring pathways in that person's awareness, in inspiring and empowering ways that no other music can do — and indeed significantly improves brain function (flexibility and motivation to explore new ground, so maximizing quality of life).Indeed, in September 2023 I decided to count this version as the first of my 'official' music compositions of an apparently completely new type, which I'm calling nature-symphonies (always hyphenated, for they aren't symphonies about nature, but are substantial works generated and performed by 'Mother Nature'.
This piece, then, is now entitled Nature-Symphony 1 (The Inner Fire wistfully seeking to define itself), and is presented on my music compositions site as the first of a series of these Nature-Symphonies. I expect to create one of those from each half-speed chimes recording that I've already made.
-
-
Three recordings of the River Teign, with bits and pieces of wind chimes and bird sound. A great sound to go to sleep by, for people who regard my normal run of wind chimes recordings too 'frisky' for that purpose!
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130218_r1-04 — River Teign with wind chimes — Pluto chimes — Of this series of three, this has the most chimes sound, but virtually no obvious birdsong. — 9'
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130218_r1-05 — River Teign with a hint of wind chimes (Pluto, Gypsy Mezzo & Soprano) and birds — The chimes sound is very sparing, but at least with some bird sound. — 23'
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130218_r1-06 — River Teign with a hint of wind chimes (Gypsy Mezzo & Soprano) and birds — Of this series of three, this has the least chimes sound, but at least has some bird sound as compensation! — 33'
-
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
-
Nature-Symphony 1 (The Inner Fire wistfully seeking to define itself) — 48'
-
Nature-Symphony 53 (
Yon bright mountain calls from afar, its distance vast!
) — 61' -
Nature-Symphony 63 (Chaos – Anti-Chaos — The inner fire in wonder at what it's creating) — 107'
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Nature-Symphony 64 (The inner fire's unending quest for its own meaning) — 102'
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor, running water
>> 6 Feb 2013 — Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon — wind chimes, in valley-top woods and in
valley bottom by the River Teign, near Drogo Weir.
8r — 36' — 20' — 28' — 14' — 15' — 15' — 11' — 13'
Available chimes this time were Gypsy (Mezzo and Soprano), Gregorian, and Pluto.
-
Windy conditions in the valley-top woods above Fingle Bridge (same spot as in my 30 January recordings) but not a gale this time, with some strong gusts but peaceful interludes too. Particularly clear and three-dimensional sound. N.B. The first recording I made in this session was of both the Gypsy chimes with the Gregorian chimes, but I found that combination to be so discordant that I deleted that recording.
-
130206_r1-01 — Gypsy Mezzo, Soprano chimes — 36'
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130206_r1-02 — Gypsy Mezzo chimes — 20'
-
130206_r1-03 — Gregorian Tenor chimes — This recording has more peaceful interludes than the preceding two
recordings, because the wind was gradually easing during the day. — 28'
-
-
Chimes in the valley bottom, beside the River Teign. The river is noisy in the recordings below, because (a) the recording locations were just a little downstream of a weir with fish ladder (the Drogo Weir), (b) the river is vociferously 'babbling' as it tumbles over boulders nearer the recorder, and (c) the river is still quite full after recent periods of heavy rain. These recordings are best perceived NOT as poor or 'failed' wind chimes recordings but as recordings of the river sound with embedded wind chimes, which latter come to the fore now and again, when more pronounced gusts of wind make them more frisky.
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130206_r1-04 — Gregorian chimes (1) — 14'
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130206_r1-05 — Gregorian chimes (2) — 15'
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130206_r1-06 — Gregorian chimes (3) — 15'
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130206_r1-04+05+06 — Compilation of a. to c. … — 48'
-
130206_r1-07 — Gypsy Soprano chimes — 11'
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130206_r1-08 — Gregorian chimes (4) — 13'
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Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
-
Nature-Symphony 2 (Deep Cave Waterfall Celebrating Its Own Splendour) — 60'
-
Nature-Symphony 3 (Music of the Unknown Deep Cave Waterfall) — 22'
-
Nature-Symphony 4 (Gypsies seeking to find something that can never be found) — 56'
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Nature-Symphony 5 (Wide-eyed young monk's contemplation of Ama Dablam) — 53'
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor, wind
>> 30 Jan 2013 — Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, high up in
valley woods above Fingle Bridge — a spectacular session with wind chimes
in a GALE!
4r — 39' — 36' — 34' — 35'
These are NOT 'failed' wind chimes recordings, but spectacular recordings of a GALE roaring its way in monstrous gusts through the tree branches above and around me, with the sound of wind chimes intermingled with that commotion — sometimes coming to the forefront and at other times being almost completely drowned out by particularly monstrous gusts
This recording session was again high up on the north side of the Teign Gorge, Devon (in the north-east outskirts of the Dartmoor National Park), but this time, because of the very strong wind I didn't bother to go to my previous recording spots further on there, which would probably have been much too windy, but kept just within the woods well up above Fingle Bridge.
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130130_r1-01 — Chimes of Pluto with Gypsy Soprano + Mezzo chimes — 39'130130_r1-01-halfspeed — I've made a very beautiful and other-worldly-sounding half-speed extract from this recording. — 41'
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130130_r1-03 — Chimes of Pluto with Gypsy Mezzo chimes — 36'
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130130_r1-04 — Chimes of Pluto — 34'
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130130_r1-07 — Gypsy Soprano + Mezzo chimes — 35'
Sea, Boscastle, Cornwall, blowhole
>> 9 Jan 2013 — Boscastle Harbour
2r — 48' — 42'
This is what remains after some purging from this particular session.-
130109_r1-03 — Boscastle Harbour — on precarious steep rocky ground just above the blowhole. The blowhole activity declines during this recording, as the tide relentlessly changes. — 48'
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130130_r1-07 — Wide panorama, notionally some 270°, from cliff-edge prominence on Willapark (Coast Watch station) headland beside Boscastle Harbour. — 42'
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor
>> 28 Nov 2012 — Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, above the Hunter's Path high up on the
valley slope, near Sharp Tor, near Castle Drogo, but higher up, almost at top of the hill -first
use of Music of the Spheres Gypsy chimes, also with bamboo chimes
5r — 25' — 26'— 29' — 27'— 30'
The Music of the Spheres Gypsy chimes take us into a completely different sound world from that of
the Woodstock chimes, which latter I'd been using exclusively before. Because of their rather
ungrounding type of sound, I particularly wanted them to
have a prominent background sound from the River Teign, which was still fairly loud on this day.
However, the wind was in the wrong direction and I had to go a bit further up the slope almost to the top of the hill to get sufficient wind — and that meant that what recordings I could make got only a faint and not particularly noticeable background from that slight low rushing sound. They do, however, get some welcome but still rather meagre wind sound in the surrounding trees, and they also get some distant cow moos, and one of the recordings gets a really neatly timed mini-drama from two male blackbirds. Also, the bamboo chimes (large + small sets) were a welcome grounding influence, though not used for the fifth recording.
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121128_r1-01 — Gypsy Soprano + Mezzo, + Bamboo chimes (1) — The first c. 10 minutes of the recording have only gentle wind and quiet mysterious sound from the chimes, after which the wind got up and I thought was getting too consistently strong, which is why I repeated the recording (see below). — 25'
-
121128_r1-02 — Gypsy Soprano + Mezzo,+ Bamboo chimes (2) — I repeated the previous recording (above) on a
nearby very slightly lower tree, which got the wind in phases and gusts, so giving me the
variability that I wanted for the most effective recordings. From a distance the two sets of Gypsy
Chimes sounded like a mysterious ghostly distant organ playing, and various walkers passing by
stopped, transfixed by the sound. — 26'
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121128_r1-03 — Gypsy Soprano, + Bamboo chimes — 29'
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121128_r1-04 — Gypsy Mezzo, + Bamboo chimes — The Gypsy Mezzo chimes have an incredibly doleful sound on their
own, much more ponderous than the quite lively Soprano version. This contains a beautiful and
entertaining little interlude in which two blackbirds add their own little drama. — 27'
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121128_r1-05 — Gypsy Soprano + Mezzo chimes (only) — Again, at a distance, sounding like that ghostly distant organ playing. The wind was gradually easing off, so the chimes sound becomes gentler and the distant cow moos get noticed more. — 30'
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
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Nature-Symphony 56 (The inner fire inspecting its active star-formation regions…) — 53'
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Nature-Symphony 78 (Inspirational companions in the land of shadows) — 52'
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor
>> 21 Nov 2012 — Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, by the Hunter's Path high up on the
valley slope, at Sharp Tor, near Castle Drogo — Woodstock wind chimes and cheap, locally purchased
bamboo chimes (large and small sets).
6r — 13' — 35' — 37 — 29' — 34' — 27'
My recordings of this particular day are graced by a particularly prominent background sound
from the River Teign. Indeed, I came to think of this day as 'Flood Wednesday', as it followed
heavy rain the previous day and through the night to early that morning, and it caused major
flooding problems in many places, and consequently also the River Teign was very full and making a
fair amount of noise coming through the valley.
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121121_r1-02 — Bamboo chimes (large + small) — When I made this recording I thought the sound of the bamboo chimes on their own wasn't all that interesting, and so didn't make a long recording of it — but, upon actually listening to it on my own hi-fi system at home I regretted not having made it at least a full half hour. This dry, scuttling, 'rustic' sort of sound, along with the wind and the background of distant rushing water, is, in its own way, quite as beautiful to listen to in the midst of the wind gusts as the refined (and expensive) metal chimes. — 13'
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121121_r1-03 — Bamboo + Pluto chimes — 35'
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121121_r1-04 — Bamboo + Gregorian chimes — 36'
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121121_r1-05 — Bamboo + Gregorian + Pluto chimes — 28'
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121121_r1-06 — Gregorian + Pluto chimes (4) — 34'
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121121_r1-07 — Gregorian chimes (2) — 27'
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor
>> 14 Nov 2012 — Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, by the Hunter's Path high up on the
valley slope, suspended on a tree beside the path, near Sharp Tor, near Castle Drogo -Woodstock
chimes
6r — 13' — 18' — 6' — 29' — 35' — 36'
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121114_r1-01 — Gregorian Tenor chimes — 13'
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121114_r1-02 — Olympos chimes — 18'
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121114_r1-03 — Gregorian + Pluto chimes (2) — This was actually a false start of what I had meant to be a half-hour recording, for after a few minutes I decided I wanted to reposition the chimes and start again. During this short recording there was only a little wind, and so this is a nice gentle 'prelude' type of piece. — 6'
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121114_r1-04 — Gregorian + Pluto chimes (3) — Got it right this time, and also the wind obliged and woke up a fair bit more. — 29'
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121114_r1-05 — Olympos + Gregorian + Pluto chimes — The most beautiful combination of chimes that I'd heard
up to this point! The Olympos chimes ensure that the overall effect is deeply sad, yet the Gregorian
chimes add abundance and variety to that sadness experience, always with the Pluto chimes sounding
like a commentating chorus in some Ancient Greek tragedy. — 35'
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121114_r1-06 — Olympos + Gregorian chimes — The effect here without the Pluto chimes is weightier in sound,
yet not so strongly emotional — and of course still mightily beautiful. — 36'
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
Wind Chimes, Dartmoor
>> 6 Nov 2012 — Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, by the Hunter's Path high up on the
valley slope, (1) suspended on a tree beside the path, near Sharp Tor, near Castle Drogo, and the
other two recordings at Sharp Tor — Woodstock precision tuned metal chimes
3r — 12' — 30' — 14'
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121106_r1-01 — Chimes of Pluto — The spot I chose for this, my first wind chimes recording, turned out to be a
little too exposed to the wind on this particular day, and so this recording is friskier than I'd generally aim for. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the strong gusts of wind
in the microphones still enhanced rather than spoiled the recording — seeing that it was meant to
be a natural soundscape with chimes, rather than just a wind chimes recording. — 12'
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121106_r1-02 — Chimes of Olympos + Chimes of Pluto — This was a real ear-opener for me! Putting these two sets
of chimes together produces an incredibly beautiful but also, to my ears, immensely sad sound,
which the wind works in such a way as to seem to be telling some very sad story. The full effect
comes from listening to the full recording rather than just an excerpt. — 30'
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121106_r1-03 — Gregorian Tenor chimes + Chimes of Pluto — Again, the Chimes of Pluto are transformed when heard alongside the Gregorian Chimes, and the emotional effect of the combination, although not exactly sad, does seem to have an intense 'romantic' quality about it — though this is better heard in the subsequent recordings I made of this combination (the wind was easing off a bit by this time). — 14'
Nature-Symphonies with input from this session
Cornwall, sea
>> 8 Sep 2012 — On clifftop by Ladies' Window, Firebeacon Hill, near Boscastle, Cornwall
1r — 38'
120908_r1-01 — Clifftop by Ladies' Window — Relatively gentle sea on complex rugged cliffs — on cliff edge,
overlooking narrow sea inlet. A distant small fishing boat and a speedboat can be heard at
different times — actually enhancing rather than spoiling the recording, as they help to give a
sense of perspective and balance. A lovely gentle soundscape that greatly enhanced my hiking lunch
stop that day. — 38'
Weather
>> 28 Jun 2012 — Gentle night rain with a hint of seagulls and thunder
1r — 21'
120628_r1-01 — Taken in the small hours, when I was hoping for a real storm to come over, which actually didn't happen, though something quite spectacular was passing by in the distance, and I was miffed not
to get that one. For a fair while the sky to the south-east was dimly alight with almost continuous
very distant lightning, and that storm system caused some havoc in various more northern parts of
England the following day.
This still makes a quite delightful bit of peaceful ambiance, with that teasing slight menace of the very distant and much of the time hardly audible mumblings of thunder. — 21'
Appendix
Wind Chimes
in the Wild —
Symphonies of Wind Chimes and Nature
So far, the larger chimes have all been recorded hung on low tree branches at the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, in the north-east outskirts of the Dartmoor National Park, either overlooking that steep sided valley or beside the River Teign at the bottom, so that they have varying amounts of background noise from the River Teign, either far below (tumbling over rocks) or close by — and of course wind. The wind sounds include the sound of wind in the microphones, which in this particular case generally enhances the recordings, including the odd occasions where it feels as though one is about to get blown away.
The smaller chimes, which are more practical to carry in my pack on real hikes, have been recorded at various locations at the edge of various particularly wild and rugged Cornish cliffs, as well as combined with certain of the larger chimes at the Teign Gorge.
Please note that these recordings are (deliberately) of natural soundscapes including wind chimes. What they are NOT is simply wind chimes recordings. Therefore it would be inappropriate for people to go criticizing them because of, say, wind noise, river or sea noise, bird sounds or cow moos, and neither is it appropriate for anyone to offer to 'clean up' any of the recordings for me, as one person did, presumably in the hope of gaining some sort of approval from me!
The chimes so far used are:
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Woodstock quality metal, precision tuned:
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Chimes of Olympos — tuned to a very melancholy-sounding Ancient Greek 5-note scale — apparently the same as is used in much Japanese koto music.
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Gregorian Chimes, Tenor — tuned to a radiant and 'grand'-sounding Gregorian chant mode.
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Chimes of Pluto — smaller and higher-pitched than the Gregorian or Olympos chimes, tuned to an unreservedly radiant, sweet and 'sunny' pentatonic scale. However, when these are sounding together with the Olympos or/and the Gregorian chimes, something really odd happens and the Pluto chimes at once lose their radiant, 'sunny' feel and instead act as a modulator of the 'feel' and indeed emotional effects of those other chimes, producing some potentially quite strong emotional effects.
The cause of this appears to lie in the fact that the Pluto Chimes on their own don't produce any obvious minor chord sound at all*, and thus sound particularly 'happy' and radiant. As soon as other chimes are sounding as well, it would be difficult for there not to be notes that complete minor chords and the various 'tension' chords such as tritones, diminished / augmented triads, and so on, as extensions from the Pluto Chimes notes — and hence the loss of the 'happiness'.
By the same token, the Olympos chimes 'sadness' effect is actually intensified by being topped by the major chord tendency of the Pluto chimes. Adding 'major' to 'minor' doesn't necessarily neutralize its effects, and generally can make it much more potent in emotional effect.
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Chimes of Polaris — (a later acquisition, May 2013) still smaller and higher pitched than the Chimes of Pluto, using an extension of the same pentatonic scale that the latter chimes use. The sound is particularly radiant, always giving me a 'rainbow colours' impression, and sounds intensely beautiful when mingled with sea sounds.
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Chimes of Mercury — (a later acquisition, June 2013) even smaller and higher than the Polaris chimes, extending the range of 'rainbow colours' pentatonic sound still higher and giving any ensemble a brilliant shimmering top end.
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Chimes of Mars — (obtained at the same time as the Mercury chimes) a bit larger and less high than the Mercury chimes, although almost as shrill and brilliant. Actually I bought this set under the misapprehension that it was tuned to another range within the standard pentatonic scale (i.e., equivalent to the black notes of a piano), but it isn't at all, as its intervals are (ascending), semitone, major third, whole tone, semitone — quite weird, and thus seeming guaranteed to give the particular chimes something of a hectoring tone! Every use of this with other chimes has been quite an experiment, if not quite an experience!
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Music of the Spheres quality metal, precision tuned.
Two sets, both tuned to an Eastern European Gypsy scale, and this tuning, together with the unbalanced timbre of these chimes* (indeed, this apparently is the case for most or all of the wind chimes from that source) results in a particularly ethereal and 'nocturnal' sort of quality that actually I have some reservations about, because for me personally I sense in their sound a resonance with 'dark' witchcraft and indeed Satanism. At a slight distance, they sound remarkably like some ghostly organ playing, and, to my sensibility, it isn't at all a happy sound even though it's extremely beautiful.
These Gypsy chimes turn out to be relatively difficult to combine with chimes tuned to other scales. In my experience they are completely incompatible with the Gregorian chimes that I have been using — producing then a discordant chaos. On the other hand the clashes with the Pluto chimes turned out to be sufficiently minor actually to give a very beautiful and intriguing effect, in which the characteristic and very different sound-worlds of the Gypsy and Pluto chimes are merged to produce something completely different. Combined with the Olympos chimes, the effect is strikingly 'modern' and interesting, more astringent than the combination with the Pluto chimes but not at all (to my ears) what I'd call actually discordant.
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Gypsy, Soprano
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Gypsy, Mezzo
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Bamboo wind chimes — two sets — large and small, both very cheaply purchased from a local superstore. These are imprecise in their tuning but each set gives a crude impression of whole tone scale, and both sets sounding together tend to emphasize the tritone interval. Their rustic 'earthiness' provides a very refreshing and grounding contrast to the refined and ethereal sound of the precision metal chimes. So far I have always used both large and small bamboo sets together; I may or may not use them separately in the future.
The lack of 'sustain' to their sound, together with their rather imprecise tuning, enables them to be used successfully with any of the metal chimes that I have so far used, for one's 'inner ear' does not try to merge the two types of sound to create harmonies, and thus no sense of discord is produced where, technically, there are dissonances between bamboo and 'other'.
