If a spark bird is a gateway to an interest in birding, then a spark place, I’d posit, is a gateway to a connection with nature. These places sometimes inspire writers. Think Thoreau and Walden, Annie Dillard and Tinker Creek, Aldo Leopold and Sauk County. My spark place in the last decade was Oaks Bottom, and for me it inspired music.
It was an affair of convenience, to start. Conveniently located in central SE Portland, the 163-acre wildlife refuge and nature park was on the route to my child’s school. I’ve taken thousands of photos there. I’ve made hundreds of field recordings. I’ve observed and contemplated its changes through the seasons and years, for most of a decade.
So it was with a mix of complex emotions that I visited on the last day of school on the last year that my child will attend school nearby. I will continue to visit it of course, but it will be much less convenient to do so. Much less routine.
In the section of the field recording that I chose to use for this piece you hear me walking on the trail, then stopping by an area I call “the coves” alongside the large pond, to sit on a rock for about 15 minutes and soak it all in. This rock is right beside the trail, at the base of a bluff. A concrete eight-story Mausoleum looms above, standing next to a primary schoolyard. The 50’ tall, windowless wall of the mausoleum acts as sounding board reflecting the children’s voices down the embankment. In the foreground of the soundscape are the morning sounds of creatures who find what they need here. Song Sparrows, House Finches, Black-capped Chickadees, Spotted Towhees, Crows, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Cedar Waxwings, Great Blue Herons, and Mallards with softly twittering ducklings.
In a stylistic break, I chose not to interrupt the soundscape recording with musical accompaniment for the first five minutes. I guess I’m thinking of this interval as a deliberate acclimation phase for the musical accompaniment section. When the music does enter, I meander my way through a solo performance for Pianet electric piano consisting of 9 parts; one for each year I made the cross-town pilgrimage. The reverberant children’s voices struck me more deeply than they usually do, and I tried to convey that in the piano performance. What can I say about it? It’s performed in my way; which is to say it’s tender and naive, and just my fingers communicating something words can’t quite get at.
Thanks for listening, reading, and allowing me to share my story and music. I hope it brings you some enjoyment and reflection.
Last Day, Oaks Bottom