The History of Grace Note Windchimes
In 1982 musician Jeff Kile was living in a rural Louisiana tree house and playing music on the street for spare change. Jeff's love for music combined with his natural surroundings sparked an idea for creating the ultimate windchime. harmonically tuned aluminum windchimes were already being marketed, but Jeff envisioned a windchime with a unique suspension design. All of the wind chimes on the market used a similar suspension that utilized string through holes in the top of the tubes. This suspension technique reduced the resonance of the chimes. By placing pins inside the tubes at the resonant node (the spot on a vibrating tube that doesn't vibrate) Jeff eliminated the interference of the string against the tubes. This innovative design resulted in longer and clearer resonance The original Grace Note Windchimes were tuned by ear to notes that Jeff played on his guitar. Encouraged by the sound quality of his windchimes, Jeff returned to his home state of California and turned to his brother, Mark, for support. With Mark's $300.00 tax return check as a business start up, the partnership was born. They named the company Grace Note Chimes. In music, the term "grace note" refers to an unwritten musical note that falls between two existing notes, as in a bent note. A grace note is a musical adornment. It seemed a fitting name for such harmonic windchimes.
