Product: Chimes
Surf Chimes   (+6)  [vote for, against]
Windchime like device activated by waves rolling in.

Standing 3 or 4 feet high and mounted in a tide pool, water moving in would activate them and make pleasant wind chime sounds. They'd be very big so they'd have to be dampened a bit so they wouldn't sound like loud clanging bells which wouldn't be pleasant.

It would look pretty too, like a modern art sculpture thingy.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 23 2022

Sea Organ https://weburbanist...ith-crashing-waves/
[xenzag, Jul 24 2022]

Water doesn't completely dampen the ring. https://www.youtube...watch?v=HUjWRYKIYeI
But the tubes would fill and empty making a sliding note. [doctorremulac3, Jul 24 2022]

Might sound a little like the weird bendy chime sound at the intro to this song. https://www.youtube...watch?v=06lWmDg7i7Q
Used to be one of my favorite cover songs to sing back in the day. [doctorremulac3, Jul 24 2022]

They'd move like this. https://www.youtube...watch?v=PcfeZuUws44
[doctorremulac3, Jul 25 2022]

Closest thing I could find to the basic idea. https://www.alamy.c...lies-101585284.html
Be spread along a wider area and just a few feet tall. Color would be natural weathered metal, probably copper, with a nice green patina. [doctorremulac3, Jul 25 2022]

Bells in water proof of concept https://www.youtube...watch?v=VxBsmGeXM2I
My design would sound similar but with rising and falling tones. [doctorremulac3, Jul 25 2022]

Experiment! https://youtu.be/Pln47StEpxM
Hitting a wind chime with a stick while it's in a bucket [Loris, Aug 13 2022]

https://www.timeandtidebell.org/ [pocmloc, Oct 31 2023]

Æolian Pipe Dream Aeolian_20Pipe_20Dream
A wind instrument with a haunting vibrato. [minoradjustments, Oct 31 2023]

City funded "water associated art" https://x.com/Cultu...34818379956259?s=20
Mine would certainly be nicer than this and somebody made bucks. (Euros, whatever) [doctorremulac3, Nov 01 2023]

This is what it would sound like, only with the pitch rising and falling like in Loris's test. https://www.youtube.../shorts/slThGC0DDVc
I can see sitting by the ocean watching this sway in the surf making this sound. [doctorremulac3, Nov 01 2023]

Just occurred to me, there would be holes in the bottom of the chime tubes to let the rising and lowering water in. As they chimed the pitch would rise and fall as the water filled and emptied from the tube. This would make this sound very unique as the chime sounds rose and fell at random.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 24 2022


see link. Not quite the same....but uses passage of seawater to make resonant sounds.
-- xenzag, Jul 24 2022


My god Xen, that is magnificent!

My only criticism is it's playing a major chord and sounds a bit man made. I'm thinking the randomness of my thing would be more soothing.

I kind of want to do this. It would be weighed down so it woudn't float away, but if a storm came the sea decides to take it I'd say "Fair enough.".

I'd like to see a lot more sculptures in nature, along hiking trails and such.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 24 2022


Curious about that bone. This seems like such a harmless idea. Just curious why such a friendly idea would be hit. Is it just an "I hate you!" sniper bone or is there a legit criticism of this idea? Either one's fine and I cheerfully accept either, just curious.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 24 2022


Maybe it's a nostalgic autoboner re-enactment.
-- pertinax, Jul 24 2022


I’ll even it up [+]
-- xenzag, Jul 24 2022


Thank you Xenzag, I think we were meant to be on this site as a sort of ying/yang thing, butting heads and whatnot, but when we see eye to eye, Venn diagram style, it's always on (mostly your) art stuff which I have great respect for.

I hope you remember when you were talking about quitting, I was one of many who asked you to stay. This site would not be the same without you. You're a staple as much as 8th or Max was. People can disagree and still work together eh? Sometimes anyway. Thank you for the bun, probably my favorite bun in all the years I've been here.

And by the way, nothing against autoboning, they're just better with comments. This is a chat site after all. Remember how broken hearted 8th would be when a flame war would flicker out? God I miss that guy.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 24 2022


I think chimes need to be able to vibrate, and having water in would damp them rather too much. In both senses of the word. Unless the sound you wanted was muffled clunks.

But all is not lost. You could use a frame to hold the chimes above water, with a clapper hanging down into the waves.
-- Loris, Jul 24 2022


We’ll that’s the idea, to somewhat dampen them. Otherwise it would sound like a crate full of exhaust pipes rolling down a staircase.

Keep in mind, these are 3 to 5 feet tall. Think of wine glasses with varying amounts of water in them, the water doesn’t dampen the ding or the note if you’re playing it with a wet finger, it just determines the frequency.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 24 2022


That's a good point.
I'm still not sure it'll work though.

Wine glasses are made of thin glass, while wind chimes are generally made of metal. and I think the physical characteristics of the material and the shape might be different enough not to substitute.
And probably chimes wouldn't survive long if made of glass (particularly not if scaled up and exposed to the elements at the seashore).

Also relevant - you can stop a tuning fork pretty quickly by putting it too deep into water.

My intuition could totally be wrong, though.
-- Loris, Jul 24 2022


Clearly we’re past the theoretical speculation stage and need to move on to making a prototype to test. Let me mess around with this and I’ll report the results.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 24 2022


And just occurred to me what the prototype could be, something you put in a fountain or decorative little pond that imparts the cycle of up and down and movement to ding them together with a rotating actuator underneath to give the sound effect. Could even do a desktop version.

This sounds like a nice weekend project when I get some other business crap that's eating my life out of the way.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 24 2022


I was thinking of trying an existing wind-chime in a bucket. Might get the chance to try that in a few weeks.
-- Loris, Jul 24 2022


That would test the basic premise, just move them up and down in the water. That's real easy, get hollow wind chimes and a bucket.

I'm guessing it might sound like multiples of this sound from the intro to this really cool old guitar song. (link)
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 24 2022


Just to clarify the design, they're secured by driving a rod into the sand, there's a chain leading to a float, all of this is under water, then extended up from the float is the tube with holes in the bottom to let water freely flow in and out. The movement would be like underwater plants. (link) Only the metal part sticks out of the water.

I want to check out a smaller version for fountains too. The water movement from a water feature might be enough to tinkle these things. They have a version with bells but mine would do the rising and falling tones thing.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 25 2022


//That would test the basic premise, just move them up and down in the water. That's real easy, get hollow wind chimes and a bucket.//

Always do the simplest, cheapest experiment which can test a concept first.
-- Loris, Jul 25 2022


Yup. And not just because it's easier. I find that sloppy first time prototypes can give you more info due to their imperfection. So if an inexact sloppy mockup works, great. If it doesn't, it can expose a flaw that might not have become apparent with a carefully finished product, if that makes any sense.

So that bell fountain thing in the link? I'm going to make a desktop version of this only with the uppy downy dingy tubes.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 25 2022


Loris! Wow! Thank you for that link!

It works!!!

I modified my design to have the pipes more parallel to the water so the movement and tone bending is more pronounced.
-- doctorremulac3, Aug 13 2022


Good news everyone!

While on holiday at my parents, we performed said experiment, and the results are documented in a short video on youtube, on my wife's youtube account.

I think it worked pretty well, and shows that the concept is indeed feasible. The sound is muffled, but not enormously so, and the pitch varies as you'd expect.

I would like to thank the indulgence of my father and daughter in performing and recording this project.
The water in the bucket was disposed of responsibly after filming.
-- Loris, Aug 13 2022


Oh my gosh! You did this? You're awesome! Thank all involved, you made my day!!!
-- doctorremulac3, Aug 13 2022


You're most welcome. We had fun doing it.
It did take a few goes to get a video which showed what I wanted.
-- Loris, Aug 13 2022


//I modified my design to have the pipes more parallel to the water so the movement and tone bending is more pronounced.//

I think you will need the pipes to be vertical, so they're perpendicular to the water surface. Otherwise, the resonant height would vary across the tube. As demonstrated above, though, I'm sometimes wrong.
-- Loris, Aug 13 2022


I'm also thinking of having them bent to there's a portion that's verticle and a portion that's at an angle to the water so the varying contact area between pipe and water is expanded.

I'm so busy I've had this on my weekend project list for weeks now. I really need a break to do something fun like this. I'll let you know the results.

Thanks again for doing that Loris, you're awesome!
-- doctorremulac3, Aug 13 2022


“Sea Organ Security Team: Send a detachment to wrestle the moray eel out of the A-Flat.”

An alternative instrument would be an Æolian organ pipe that used a U-shape of the pipe underwater so that the level of water below the whistle part changed volume and made continuous, changing notes. Dampening the water movement a bit would purify the tones. They could be tuned to wind speed.
-- minoradjustments, Oct 31 2023


I'd love to put this idea into action sometime in my life. I think they'd look and sound beautiful. Bells from the ocean are already a thing with buoys, although they're just the single bell ringing. To me there's no more relaxing sound that a bell being rung by the waves with seagulls sining in the background.

Throw in a foghorn? Oh yea. I'm all about just chillin' on a porch at some resort and taking it all in.
-- doctorremulac3, Oct 31 2023


[doc] This is the Æolian Pipe Dream with the bottom ends submerged in the waves. The only difference is that the APDs carry their water with them in U-shaped bottom of the pipe. The effect is the same; a varying tone, a warbling note.[Link]
-- minoradjustments, Oct 31 2023


Interesting, I'm guessing could be really spooky sounding eh?

We should actually make these. I'd so love to see more of our weird ideas come to reality. Bake some of these crazy things.

Maybe we could get colleges to have a yearly HalkBakeoff contest. Students pick one of the approximately ten trillion ideas here, actually make them and win a contest for a scholorship or something.
-- doctorremulac3, Oct 31 2023


From what I've seen since I've been here, original art posted here first which has commercial viability usually becomes reality within a year or so, sometimes much sooner.
Ideas from here which are totally cool but can not generate a profit tend to languish.

This idea is totally cool and deserves to be created...

...alas.

...

Perhaps after I am named Benevolent Planetary Sovereign we can talk.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 01 2023


If you only want the name, use a deed poll.

It might look good on your driving license.

On the other hand, the initials B.S. might be a drawback.

So you'd have to deal with people taking the P.
-- pertinax, Nov 01 2023


I should really do this. Don't know if I could make any money, but if the "artist" who made this fountain in Vienna charged over a million. (Link)

I'd be fine with art for art's sake but I've got bills to pay.

Maybe I'll do a prototype, make a mockup of what it would look like and take it to a couple of coastal town city hall meetings.

Hmm. I'll post updates.
-- doctorremulac3, Nov 01 2023


//On the other hand, the initials B.S. might be a drawback//

M'yes. Quite a serious pisstake.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 01 2023



random, halfbakery