By Steve Wilent For The Mountain Times
Last July’s column, “Feeling Stressed Out? Listen to The Music of the Forest,” elicited more responses from readers than any other edition of The Woodsman. Several readers wrote to say that they, too, appreciate the quiet of the forest, or the music of songbirds, or the sounds of wind in the trees. Others said that they, too, had heard music produced by humans in the woods. As you may recall, I recounted a time I spent by a wilderness lake listening to someone across the lake playing a violin, playing it very well, and feeling my initial annoyance turn into what was a “virtuoso’s unexpected gift.”
One night my boys and I camped at the Salmonberry Park and Campground, a Benton County facility along the Alsea River, off of Highway 34 east of Waldport. Lovely place, with camp sites ringing a large meadow. We arrived in the late afternoon to find that we had the park to ourselves. After we explored the meadow and the river, we returned to our site for dinner. As I began preparations, an old Volkswagen van pulled into a site across the meadow. Almost as soon as the van’s side door opened, we heard music. Loud music. I was about to stomp across the meadow to demand that they turn it down, when I realized that they were playing a classic jazz tune by Billie Holiday. I did ask them to turn it down, and they did, and a conversation about jazz, camping, and fishing followed. It turned out to be another unexpected gift: both Lady Day’s music and delightful people.
Sometimes music in recreation sites is welcome. One time a young man wandered into my campsite and invited my friends and I to join him and his friends in another site for music and singing. We did. We didn’t have instruments (or know how to play them if we did), but we brought along some beer to share and had a fine evening getting to know a dozen other folks and listening to them play guitars, a banjo, and a harmonica, and we joined them around the fire pit in singing a few folk/rock songs. I usually go camping to get away from people, but this was one time when I was glad for the camaraderie. I hope we didn’t disturb anyone.
Sometimes music in recreation sites is not welcome. Camping one evening in the redwoods near Big Sur, California, my companions and I were startled when a rock band started playing. Not a recording, an actual band. Five or six guys had set up amplifiers in their camp site, with extension cords plugged into outlets in the restroom, and were putting on a concert. Guitars, a bass, drums, microphones. The music was good and loud — until the park rangers pulled the plugs.
A violin played by a mountain lake may be inspiring, but a cello played by a novice isn’t, as I learned one spring day at Cottonwood Canyon State Park. I had just returned from a long walk along the John Day River — you can hike for miles up- or downstream from the campground — and had settled down with a book and a cold India pale ale, when someone in a site a couple hundred feet away began to practice playing a cello. He knew a fragment of one song, and he played it slowly, over and over again. I felt sorry for his companions and the other campers. Instead of complaining, I put on my headphones and blasted some RPWL, a German progressive rock group that started out as a Pink Floyd cover band and now plays its own music. (RPWL is a combination of the first letters of the original four members’ last names: Rissettio, Postl, Wallner, and Lang.) I was tempted to drown out the cello student with RPWL at full volume on my car stereo, but resisted the impulse.
Lara and I don’t have to leave home to hear music in the forest. We’ve heard a variety of music from the several short-term rental homes in our woodsy neighborhood. Considerate visitors keep the volume low during parties or weddings, but some renters apparently think that everyone enjoys their music as much and as loudly as they do. Sharing music can be relatively benign or a cause of extreme annoyance, especially in the hours between 10 p.m. and dawn. According to the Clackamas County noise ordinance, “quiet time” is from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. IMHO, it should be extended to 8 a.m., especially for chain saws (and guitars that sound like chain saws), nail guns, pressure washers, and other loud tools.
This September, Lara and I will attend an unusual outdoor concert in Sunriver, Oregon, by pianist Hunter Noack and his 1912 Steinway Model D concert grand piano. His 2025 concert series, In A Landscape: Classical Music in the Wild, is presented in several locations in the western US. The Sunriver concert will be held under the stars — Sunriver was Oregon’s first International Dark Sky Place (Cottonwood Canyon is another). The artist’s website notes that “Guests are encouraged to wander and explore the surrounding environment while listening to the music through wireless headphones, creating an immersive experience that fosters a connection with the music, nature, and with one another.”
Say, that’s kind of what I do with RPWL on my headphones.
Want to share a story about music in the woods? Know the kind of musical instrument preferred by many woodsfolks? Let me know. Email: SWilent@gmail.com.