Skip to main content

Steve Reich’s Different Trains

 

Reem Zedan 7711552

Prof. Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath

The Future of [American] Music

02 February 2022

 

Steve Reich’s Different Trains

Minimal music is not a concept I am familiar with. Yet, I really enjoyed Steve Reich’s Different Trains piece. It combined conventional music (music that is produced by instruments) and added sounds of a train track, train whistles and multiple train announcements. This might sound unimpressive for today’s age but when I realized how sampling was very new and uncommon, I could not help but admire Reich’s creativity and his way of thinking outside the box.

The urgency of the melody truly instigated a feeling of stress and worry. In the background the listener can hear the sound of the horn of the train making it seem like doom is coming closer. This piece of art can also showcase how quickly the world around us moves and how we need to adjust to the fast-paced society that we live in. The voice that was intertwined with the sound of the trains acted like a portal, allowing the listener to be transported to an actual train. The title of this piece makes me think of the reason behind it and its symbolic value. Like how the lives of people are composed of different trains. Some of us get on the same train, but we get off at various stations. While others decide to take a totally different route and end up somewhere else completely

In my opinion, Different Trains was a masterpiece which had hidden meanings. The integration of the sound of multiple trains, horns, and the voices in the background all added to the storyline of this musical piece. What I appreciate about this work is that a lot could be interpreted and discussed just from the first five minutes of listening to it while staying minimalistic, modern and nostalgic.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure

 Sarah Kumar Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of (American) Music 06 Mar. 2023 Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure According to John Oswald, “[a] plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded” (Lecture Slides 18). However, only if the source stays recognizable can it be called plunderphonics. In his album Plexure , several songs are played back and mixed together, thus creating a new sound. This is interesting because while the excerpts of songs that are used are recognizable or at least sound familiar to some degree, played backwards and mashed up as they are in Plexure , they create a new sound. Like on the cover of the album, on which a collage making up a man can be seen, the mixing of different songs played backwards gives a new feeling to something known. The way the songs are mixed makes them unintelligible. The meaning of the words of the original recordings are not able to be compr...
Post a Comment
Read more

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops III

  The Disintegration Loops is a quartet of albums published in 2002 and 2003 by American avant-garde composer William Basinski. The pieces are made up of tape loop recordings that were played over time, with noise and crackles rising as the tape deteriorated. Basinski noticed this effect when attempting to convert his older recordings to digital format. The completion of the recordings coincided with the September 11, 2001 events, which Basinski witnessed and adds a deeper meaning to the composition. The composition is fascinating in many ways and makes the listener lose track of time. The tape loop recording had a very calming effect on me and put me in a trance-like state when I listened to it in its entirety. The tape loop is really soothing, so much so that I didn't even notice the loss of quality when I first listened to it. It makes you forget about time and allows you to really get into the piece capturing the calmness it exudes. You forget or don't really notice how i...
Post a Comment
Read more

John Cage – Inlets

  This does not sound like music to me. Depending on the interpretation of different players or performers, this piece will always sound different. In this case, it sounds to me like someone is walking through a cave with water at the bottom, dragging their feet through it. Sometimes it sounds like water in a toilet bowl, especially when we hear the water in a bigger shell being swished around. These sounds are relaxing in the background, it is like a gentle stream of water. I just wonder what went through the head of the composer while writing this piece. But I guess he had some experimental ideas that are interesting to try out. Those shells are quite pretty, I have never seen such big ones that are not broken. I was surprised when something else happened towards the end of the piece. That tone which came out of the one shell was so clear, it sounded like a trumpet. I didn’t know that shells can sound like that. It was quite beautiful. It was a nice way to end the piece. I di...
Post a Comment
Read more