Sparkbird - Stephan Nance

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August Newsletter: Mayday!

Stephan Nance

Happy August!

My news, in brief (if you don’t want to read the whole newsletter):

Last month I told you how stressed out I was about my Senegal parrot, Georgie, who had started plucking her feathers. We were worried it would progress till she was practically bald, which happens to a lot of pet parrots. The vet said Georgie was perfectly healthy, and that her diet and lifestyle seemed good. We were feeding her the same mix of chopped vegetables, grains, legumes, and parrot pellets that we’d been giving her for years. She was spending more time out of the cage than ever. With no smoking gun to point to, the vet suggested we switch to 100% pellets with a single drop of an omega 3 supplement once a day, and maybe get her to lose about 8 grams. I don’t know which of those things worked, but something apparently did, because she stopped plucking completely!

As of this week, Georgie has a new sibling, a 41-year-old Yellow-naped Parrot named Fred. Even though you can do the math, I feel like emphasizing that this bird was born in 1979. We’re told that Fred and his human were together for all 41 of those years. Then a couple weeks ago Fred’s human had to go to the ICU, and Fred ended up living in the apartment management’s office. Fred was relinquished to Exotic Bird Rescue of Oregon, and Adam and I decided to foster him. So far he’s sweet and very quiet, and he moves more slowly than any bird I’ve ever seen. He enjoys hanging upside down, sometimes for hours, and occasionally he says, “Hi Fred!”

In music news, I got a real piano!!! It’s a 1985 Yamaha M25 cherry console piano, and it’s a world away from the keyboards I’ve been playing for the past 13 years. I’m excited to continue developing my musicianship on such a fine instrument. On the day it arrived, I played it till my hands and ears were tired.

On August 19th, I'll be playing a bird-centric concert as a benefit for the Friends of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The Friends group expects to lose something like $50,000 due to the pandemic. I hope you'll attend the concert (free, with a suggested donation of $10) and consider supporting the Friends' important work of conserving, enhancing, and restoring habitat and cultural history in the Harney Basin in southeastern Oregon.

“Mayday!” — this month’s demo — gives you another sneak peek at my next album, Sparkbird. There isn’t much I can say about the song itself, because the story isn’t really mine to tell. It’s my interpretation of something someone close to me experienced. I’m not a therapist, and I’m not sure I could be one, because I’m easily impacted by other people’s pain. And when I’m in pain, even second-hand pain, I tend to write songs about whatever is hurting me. Which could lead to breaches of confidentiality.

I wrote “Mayday!” before reading The Handmaid’s Tale, but I’m pleased to see now how the song could have been inspired by the book.

I tracked the song with vocals and piano, then arranged parts for bass, piccolo, violin, and cello. I chose piccolo after reading this: "The piccolo’s staccato together with a cymbal crash has the effect of a short, piercing cry or a blow with a dagger. Spontini used this effect in his 'Grand Bacchanale'."

I sent the project to Mathias Kunzli — drummer for Regina Spektor, which I’ll keep mentioning forever because it will never stop being amazing — and he totally transformed the song with his percussion. He also changed the piano to something synthy, I think just for recording purposes, but the sound really struck me. I may add some piano back in, but there’s something really cool about the way this demo sounds. I hope you like it!

Take care,
Stephan

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