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The squish of soaked leaves underfoot was part of the music. So was the percussive drip-drip-drip off a 100-foot-tall poplar tree. So was the twittering of a curious Carolina wren, and the intermittent roar of cars on wet pavement along Ponce de Leon Avenue.

Not incidentally, the outdoor jam session also included a guitar and a virginal (an antique, portable keyboard instrument) plucking a deceptively simple pattern — in and out of phase with each other and with the sounds around them.

Photos by RICH ADDICKS/Staff (ENLARGE)
Daniel Clay (foreground) and Brian Parks perform on guitar and virginal in a wooded Atlanta area Thursday, letting the day's rainy and cold atmosphere inform their spontaneous concert.
(ENLARGE)
Daniel Clay (left) and Brian Parks set up Parks' virginal, an old-fashioned musical instrument similar to a harpsichord, for an musical event in the woods near Candler Park Golf Course on Thursday.
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On just a few hours' notice, a small group of 13 people had gathered Thursday afternoon in a patch of forest bordering the Candler Park golf course. They assembled to catch the latest show by a group that calls itself "Performances in Near-Inaccessible Environs, Public and Private Spaces."

Equal parts experimental music, performance "happening," eco-philosophy and guerrilla art, the Near-Inaccessible shows are "a way to return music and art to its primal origins," says composer/virginalist Brian Parks, 27, a graduate of Boston's Berklee School of Music and the concert organizer.

Wrapped up in the group's slogans — music should be free; music is wherever you find it; life itself is a work of art — is a deep-seated conviction that to live intensely and in the moment is a fundamental artistic and human need.

Whereas a professional, unionized group like the Atlanta Symphony plans its performances years in advance — and spends as much time backstage discussing musical issues as health care, fund-raising and audience-building — the Near-Inaccessibles stress spontaneity, participation and adventure.

"What we do," said guitarist Daniel Clay, the other member of Thursday's rainy-forest duo, "is what art is supposed to be about — without the social trappings and conventions and complete lack of spontaneity" characteristic of bigger music groups.

Thus, most Near-Inaccessible events — as documented on its Web site, publicandprivate.org — occur at night, often in spots where audiences are not welcome, such as fenced-in construction sites, bridges, tunnels and parking garages.

Parks e-mails out notices, and his friends and admirers gather — sometimes having to jump fences or explain to police why they're there.

Thursday's performance was a little bit different. A group of teenage students from the nearby Paideia School had received a special invitation (one 17-year-old studies composition with Parks) and added their sniffles, shuffles and whispers to the sonic mix.

Once the music started in the chilly, damp forest, the environment was suddenly transformed into a wintry concert hall. Parks and Clay began to pluck their minimalist harmonies, with drips from the trees setting the tempo.

One audience member, Angus Guberman, 33, a filmmaker and waiter at a Buckhead restaurant, sported waterproof outerwear and a floppy rain hat. He's attended several Near-Inaccessible shows and learned about this one from the terse e-mail — just time and place — that Parks sent at 11 p.m. the night before.

"Finding the thing is half the art," Guberman said. "It's like when you stare at an abstract painting and have no idea what's going on, it's really frustrating — till suddenly you get it, it clicks.

"At these [performances], you wander around wondering what the hell's going on. Then you find them, and you listen a while to all the sounds around you, and it clicks. That's part of the adventure."