Wind Chimes: All About their Construction, Tone and Pitch
Wood and metal are not the only materials that are used for making wind chimes.
Wind chimes come in other shapes aside from tubes and rods. In fact, there are
wind chimes made of stones, bamboo, horseshoes, PVC pipes, mechanics tools,
seashells, glass and old silverware. Pretty much anything that can produce
sounds when struck can be made into wind chimes. When these materials are used
for wind chimes, they aren't tunable, which means they don't produce specific
notes; the sounds they produce would instead range from tinkling sounds to dull
thuds. Basically, anything can be considered a wind chime if they can be moved
by wind and they produce sounds when struck by the wind.
The tone of wind chimes depends on a number of things. It depends on what kind
of material is used -- aluminum, brass, exact alloy, heat treatment, steel, etc.
The tone also depends on whether the chimes are solid cylinders or are tubes. If
the chimes are hollow tubes, then the tone produce depends on how think the wall
of the tube is. The tone also depends on how the wind chimes are hung as well as
how the tubes are struck -- whether with a hard center ball in the middle or
with a soft one, for instance.
The pitch of a whistle like an organ pipe, for instance, depends mainly on the
air column length as the pitch is actually vibrating air. The material of the
pipe helps determine the pipe's "voice" or "timbre" and the air column is what
determines the pitch. So in a wind chime that uses pipes that are solid
cylinders, it is the pipes that are struck that determine the pitch.
Some people use wind chimes to observe the changes in the direction of the wind.
For example, if you place a wind chime on the north side of your house, the wind
coming from the north will move it. A wind chime on the south side of the house
will be moved by the south wind. This can alert you of any weather changes.
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