It’s been a little while since my last Listening Spot release. If you’re just joining, Listening Spot is a pseudonym I use for stationary environmental recordings paired to atmospheric “ambient” compositions. Once again, however, I’m breaking with the tradition of avoiding piano with a Listening Spot release. Pianet electric piano alternates with Korg synthesizer “dew drops” at the center of this musical score.

This time we are visiting the iconic Mt. Tabor Park of Portland, Oregon.

The 636 ft (194 meter) forested peak rises up from the otherwise mostly level plane of SE Portland. It’s a dormant cinder cone volcano from a lava field formation now quiet for over 300,000 years. From a bird’s eye view, it’s a promising rest stop on migration, offering an island of green in a patchwork of grey.

On spring mornings the park bustles with both bird and human activity. Many exercise routines target the broad summit, offering the reward of a city view looking west toward downtown Portland. Here’s a sketch of it I made on my phone:

As far as environmental recording goes, I’ve historically found Mt. Tabor to be a difficult place to make “pleasing” recordings. This notion of pleasing is, of course, entirely subjective. But, in general, the topography and popularity of the park makes the anthropogenic layers more of a focal point. Dogs barking, joggers huffing up trails, sirens wailing, trucks beeping… These are all fine and interesting sounds—I’ve actually recently come to find backup beeps an interesting musical counterpoint to the sound of nuthatches, for example—but they are not the sounds I’ve set out to capture…yet anyway.

More recently, I found a spot that’s pretty well insulated from the city soundscape and the bulk of human visitors. There is a knob between reservoir 1 and 5 with a solitary bench on top, offering a relatively tranquil listening spot in the 191-acre park. Here, I made this recording on April 4th of this year. The sounds of the city barely register below the songbirds belting out their springtime melodies.

We hear Lesser Goldfinch, Red-breasted Nuthatch, American Robin, Song Sparrow, Pine Siskin, Steller’s Jay, Northern Flicker, and a Swainson’s Thrush, to name a few. It’s a sharp contrast to the subdued songs of fall.

My score is of the minimal, imperfect, reflective and tender sort. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for coming along for the journey. It’s not always clear to me if I’m connecting with readers and listeners via Substack, so feel free to say hi.

Or, if you can think of someone who might like what I’m doing, please let them know. It means a lot to me.

Mt. Tabor Park is available under the artist name Listening Spot on all streaming platforms Friday October 3rd.

I like to work in batches. Pollinator Corridor can be filed under two batches: 1) Forest Park and 2) plein air soundwalks.

So Forest Park is self explanatory, but could use some contextualizing, which I’ll get into shortly. The plein air soundwalks batch is still taking shape. Basically it’s just me recording and sketching. Like I said last time, offering little twist on my Soundwalk formula. One little experiment I did on this particular day was to make some botanical sketches.

For being in Forest Park, you might notice on this cover that the view here isn’t thickly forested:

This is the view looking back up the hill on BPA road, where a swath of forestland was removed long ago to accommodate the high voltage power lines that run up and over the Tualatin Mountains here on the north end of the 5000 acre wooded park. The gravel and dirt lane is maintained for power line inspection and maintenance purposes, while serving dual purpose as a multi-use trail connecting the trails that intersect it.

It’s a distinct habitat in Forest Park; an edge land where grasses, berries and wildflowers grow, attracting some different animal species than the forest interior. Portland Parks & Rec. calls this a Pollinator Corridor. If you’re patient, you’ll see and hear these visitors: the migratory Rufous Hummingbird with its little toy motorcycle sound; berry-eating songbirds like the Black-headed Grosbeak; insects like bumble bees, and Western Tiger Swallowtail butterflies; and deer or sometimes elk slowly cracking through downed branches on the perimeter, coming and going.

There are few places in Forest Park that open up sufficiently to afford views of the Cascade Mountains to the west. This is one of them:

Fireweed, oceanspray, western goldenrod, and Oregon Sunshine also thrive here. Here’s a sketch of orange honeysuckle.

It’s both serene and pulsing with life.

For the score, I really leaned into the sound of the Soma Lyre “Organismic Synthesizer”. I’m using a virtual instrument playable by a midi keyboard, but the original inductive pad and knob box hardware is quite fascinating. Many electronic musicians find it unusually emotive and inspiring.

I’m also using a virtual instrument that samples the quieter timbres created by manipulating the tone bars of a 50’s / 60’s Hammond organ. I used to own a Hammond M3 organ, and my earliest musical experiments involved playing with the toggle switches and tone bars to add warm, crackly textures to my nascent experimental performances.

I didn’t reach for any Electric Piano for this one. In this way it’s crossbred with my Listening Spot ouvre, I suppose.

Reaching the end of BPA Road, the hiker is presented with a three way fork. All options are a road less travelled. Two lanes lead out to prominences topped by high voltage electric towers overlooking the Willamette River and the lower Columbia beyond. The other lane plunges down to Hwy 30 below, and is prone to overgrowth. Here’s the view from the northernmost point. It’s very peaceful place with a meadowy feel, and a nice view of the Multnomah Channel and the Sauvie Island Bridge:

Thank you, as always, for joining me here. I hope you enjoy Pollinator Corridor. It’s available on all music streaming services today, September 19th, 2025.

Also, last week I released another instrumental EP under the pseudonym Sleeping Animal. So if you’re in the mood for some impressionistic electric piano-centered music, I’ve got you covered there too. That one is called Traverse, also available on all music streaming services.