Train noise as music: an exploration of audio-graphic interpretations elicited by music students and non-musicians

ABSTRACT

This study deals with the meaning that musicians and non-musicians attach to two contemporary railway noise compositions as conveyed through verbal and audio-graphic responses. The purpose of this mixed-method study was twofold: (1) to examine similarities and differences between musicians and non-musicians in their responses to contemporary train-noise music; (2) to explore the effect of two train-noise compositional techniques – orchestral and electro-acoustic – on listeners’ verbal and audio-graphic responses. 14 participants (7 music students and 7 non-musicians) took part in the study. Two sessions were held with each participant. Two musical pieces were presented; one in each session in a randomised order: Villa-Lobos's orchestral The Little Train of the Caipira (1930); and Reich's electro-acoustic Europe during the War (1988). Four categories emerged: associations (train associations or idiosyncratic imagery), musical features (e.g. tempo, pitch, instrumentation), affect (emotions, assessment, like/dislike), and audio-graphic types (e.g. figurative drawings and musical maps). Qualitative analyses indicated both similarities and differences between musicians and non-musicians by the four categories. The statistical analyses showed a marginal significance between musicians and non-musicians in the second category (musical features). The study highlights the benefits of including environmental noise music in music education programmes for listeners with and without formal musical backgrounds.

KEYWORDS:

• Music listening
• environmental noise
• train music
• musicians and non-musicians
• audio-graphic responses to music

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For example, the Israeli policy announces the intra-musical organicism is the preferred musical doctrine for first-to six-graders: "The initial value that guides the music curriculum is intra-music (intrinsic) and is expressed in the study of music as a field of knowledge in its own right - unique and with its own concepts and symbols" (Lev 2011, 10).

2 Introduction: The heading level can be the same as the next heading level “Research on listening to dissonant and noise music”.

3 Railway paintings between 1870–1900 include Van Gogh: Station in the Hague, Railway Carriages, Landscape with Carriage and Train; Monet: Train in the Country, The Train, Arrival of the Normandy Train at Gare Saint Lazare Station, Train in the Snow at Argentuil ; Manet: Railroad; Train in The Snow; The Locomotive; Kandinsky: Murnau-View with Railway and Castle; Pissarro: Lordship Lane Station Dulwich; The Train Bedford Park. Locomotive; Kandinsky: Murnau-View with Railway and Castle; Pissarro: Lordship Lane Station Dulwich; The Train Bedford Park.

Railway literature during 1840–2020 includes Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express; 4.50 from Paddington; Émile Zola: The Beast in Man; Nathaniel: The Celestial Railroad; Conan Doyle: The Story of the Lost Special; Making Tracks and 23 railroad stories edited by Schlenker and Waugh.

Films directed during 1930–1970 include Jiří Menzel: Closely Watched Trains and Hitchcock: The Lady Vanished.

4 For example, Berlioz: Song of the Railways composed for the opening of the French Chemins de Fer du Nord (1846); Johann Strauss: Pleasure Train Op. 281 celebrated the opening of the first railway line out of Vienna.

5 For example, Britten composed music for the soundtrack in the film Night Mail (1936) that recorded the transport of mail by train.

6 For example, Rossini, Berlioz, Glinka, Bruckner, Dvorák, Elgar, members of the Strauss family, Ives, Bartók, Vila-Lobos, Grainger, Prokofiev, Honegger, Milhaud, Ibert, Hindemith, Copland, Barber, Britten, Reich and Chavez.

7 The term 'consonance' refers to the sensorial experience associated with isolated tone pairs with simple vibration frequency ratios; 'dissonance' refers to inharmonic or complex vibration frequency ratios (e.g., Terhardt 1984).

8 The testimonies were collected at the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library and from the Holocaust Collection of the American Jewish Committee’s William E. Wiener Oral History Library (Miklaszewska 2013).

9 "1940. On my birthday. The Germans walked. Walked into Holland. Germans invaded Hungary, I was in second grade. I had a teacher; a very tall man. His head was completely plastered smooth. He said, "Black Crows, Black Crows invaded our country, many years ago." And he pointed right at me. No more school. You must go away. And she said, "Quick, go!" And he said, "Don't breathe." Into the cattle wagons. And for four days and four nights. And then they went through these strange sounding names, Polish-Polish names. Lots of cattle wagons there. They were loaded with people. They shaved us. They tattooed a number on our arm. Flames going up in the sky. It was smoking."

10 Like the Modinha and Seresta that are lyrical song genres. The distinction between them is drawn according to performance location: the Modinha is performed indoors and the Seresta is done in the open air (Livingston-Isenhour and Gracia 2005).

11 Like the ganza, a cylindrically shaped rattle, and the reco reco (guiro), a scraper made of a hollow gourd with parallel notches.

12 Scores for orchestra, ensemble and solo instruments composed between 1840–1945 include Villa-Lobos: Little Train of the Caipira; Ives: Celestial, 4th symphony 2nd movement; Copland: John Henry: A Railroad Ballade for Orchestra; Glinka: Traveling Song (choral); Milhaud: Le Train Bleu (ballet); Britten: Night Mail (film); Kurt Weill: Johnny Spielt Auf (opera); Honegger: Scenic Railway Railroad; Barber: Excursions 1st movement.

13 Minimalism is a musical art form based on repetitive patterns of minimal musical materials and reiteration of musical units.

14 A type of music composition based on concrete environmental auditory sources (Doornbusch 2014; Schaeffer 1952).

15 Lobos, "The little train of the capira" performed by Brasileira Orquestra Sinfônica with Roberto Minczuk conducting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIG4h7lvj4Y (4:34).

Reich, "Europe during the War" performed by the Kronos quartet with Pat Metheny https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq5jmTx_gO0 (7:31).

16 Concerning the length of the presentation, the number and length of further quotes were selective, embedded in the main text, and surrounded by interpretations.

17 The Holocaust, known as the Shoah (Hebrew), namely the World War II genocide of the European Jews (1941–1945), is one of the most significant components in the collective identity of the Israelis (Keren 2000).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rivka Elkoshi

Rivka Elkoshi is a pianist, senior lecturer of music at Levinsky College in Tel-Aviv, Israel and supervisor of doctoral dissertations at Bar Ilan University, Ramt Gan, Israel. She has taught music at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and conducted workshops for music educators on behalf of the Education Ministry in Israel. Her specialty is research on music perception and musical literacy, piano pedagogy and the Orff method. She is a recipient of an Institutional Fellowship for her research on children's musical perception. She has served as manager at the Israeli Musicology society and presented internationally in a number of different countries. Her publications include piano compositions, a number of books on piano and Orff pedagogy (in Hebrew), and book chapters and articles on music perception and musical literacy in international British and American journals.