Wind chime

Wind chimes are a type of percussion instrument constructed from suspended tubes, rods, bells, or other objects that are often made of metal or wood.

Wind chimes that sound fairly distinct pitches can, through the chance movement of air, create simple songs or broken chords.

Bells were believed to ward off malevolent spirits and were often combined with a phallus, which was also a symbol of good fortune and a charm against the evil eye.

[2] In India during the second century CE, and later in China, extremely large pagodas became popular with small wind bells hung at each corner; the slightest breeze caused the clapper to swing, made in bronze too, producing a melodious tinkling.

[3] Japanese glass wind bells known as fūrin (風鈴) have been produced since the Edo period,[4] and those at Mizusawa Station are one of the 100 Soundscapes of Japan.

Chimes produce inharmonic (as opposed to harmonic) spectra, although if they are hung at about 2/9 of their length[5] (22.4%[6][7]), some of the higher partials are damped and the fundamental rings the loudest.

This is largely due to the fact that these scales inherently contain fewer dissonant intervals, and therefore sound more pleasant to the average listener when notes are struck at random.

In a wind chime, the vibrations of the pipe itself radiate the sound after being struck, so the air column has little to do with the pitch being produced.

Sound can be produced when the tubes or rods come in contact with a suspended central clapper in the form of a ball or horizontal disk, or with each other.

Other wind chimes materials include glass, bamboo, shell, stone, earthenware, stoneware, beads, keys and porcelain.

The sounds produced by recycling objects such as these are not tunable to specific notes and range from pleasant tinkling to dull thuds.

A metal wind chime
Bronze tintinnabulum, Roman, 1st century AD, British Museum .
Wind-powered bell or wind chime under temple eaves,. Banna-ji. Ashikaga, Tochigi . Japan
Wind chime with the audible tones a1-d2-f2-g2-a2-d3-f3-a3. The bamboo cylinder is not only the case of the instrument, but at the same time it is the resonator. The eight tones are produced by eight metal rods within the cylinder which are centrally struck by a disk attached to the cord with the wind sail.
A close-up of metal rods on a wind chime.
The mode 1 (lowest frequency) vibration of a free Euler–Bernoulli beam of length 1
David Sitek with a wind chime suspended from his guitar.