Happy September!

My news, in brief:

• My next Facebook livestream will be on September 22 at 5 PM Pacific time! Here’s the Facebook event page.

• This month’s demo, “Atlantisia,” was inspired by the Inaccessible Island Rail — the world’s smallest flightless bird.

• I’m beginning to study piano pedagogy through the Royal Conservatory of Music!

• Our car got broken into this morning!

The past month has been relatively calm. I’ve been reading, learning, making music, exercising, baking challah, enjoying summer, birding a little, and trying to scrounge up some new piano students. In a few weeks I’ll be starting the Royal Conservatory of Music’s piano pedagogy program. I’m excited to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge and grow as a teacher!

This morning, to kick off September, our car got broken into. It was packed for a camping trip. Window smashed, hundreds of dollars of stuff stolen. You think, "It's just one night, it'll be fine," but nope.

This month’s demo, “Atlantasia,” is a rare example of a song I wrote at some else’s suggestion. (The only other ones I can think of are “Disembodied Mind” and the little song I wrote for two fans’ friendiversary.) EXACTLY one year ago, on September 1, 2019, evolutionary biologist Martin Stervander tweeted:

Incidentally, Martin’s daughter Nomi is one of my biggest fans, so I had to at least try to make this song happen. I responded that I would mull it over, and I kept the idea in the back of my mind for nearly a whole year. Finally, a few weeks ago, I decided it was time. I printed out several fascinating articles:

“How a Tiny Flightless Bird Ended Up on an Island in the Middle of the Ocean” (Ryan Mandelbaum — I stayed with them when I was in NY in January!)

“How Did the World’s Smallest Flightless Bird Get to Inaccessible Island?” (Sarah Laskow)

“The Questionable Rewards of a Visit to Inaccessible Island” (Dan Nosowitz)

“Researchers unravel origins of world’s smallest flightless bird” (Matt Mendenhall)

and, of course, the scientific paper Martin co-authored:

“The origin of the world’s smallest flightless bird, the Inaccessible Island Rail” (Stervander, Ryan, Melo, Hansson)

I read through them and did a lot of underlining and notetaking. Then I set about finding a way into the song. For days and days, my ideas were all whimsical and fantastical. I was fixated on the bird’s (now former) Latin name — Atlantisia rogersi, after the legendary lost city of Atlantis. Maybe these “puny featherballs,” as Ryan Mandelbaum described them, had fallen out of favor with the deities and been exiled to a flightless existence on this remote island. Or maybe they were the guardians of the secrets of Atlantis. Or maybe all 6000 birds could come together and morph like Power Rangers into one giant, powerful bird…

I kept trying to make it work. I wanted the song to be clearly inspired by the bird, but with... something else mixed in. I accumulated pages of lyrics and dozens of audio clips of piano and vocal ideas. But I kept going in circles. Like the rail, I couldn’t seem to get off the ground.

Then one morning I decided to simply ponder over illustrations of the rail and write down whatever came up for me. Finally it dawned on me that I needed to take what I had learned about the birds and approach the song in terms of emotions.

Shortly after this, a friend called me to talk about a mutual childhood friend who had all but fallen off the face of the earth. It got me wondering, why would a person cut themselves off from their past and disappear? Why might I do that, if I were to do that?

Then I thought of another friend who is going through a period of taking time apart from a partner. Then I thought of the episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Adam and I have watched recently, and how Tara needed time apart from Willow. Then I talked to another friend who mentioned the painful circumstances under which he left his parents’ home many years ago.

I sat down at the piano and several hours later I had written this song. It isn’t any of my friends’ stories, or Tara and Willow’s story, or a life history of the Inaccessible Island Rail. It’s a sidelong glance at all of these stories, and I think the name “Atlantisia” has a wistful quality that suits it.

This demo consists of nothing but keyboard and vocals. I can hear other instruments on it (strings! strings!) but I think it has a quiet power in its current state. I really hope you enjoy it.

Thank you so much for letting me share new songs with you, and the stories behind the songs. And remember, I always like hearing from you! You can email me, or reach out on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

Take care,
Stephan