Trains of Thought

Evocative train sounds allow listeners' own trains of thought to wander freely, in this emotionally captivating electroacoustic tone poem. As with other signature Shapiro works like Immersion and Liquid Compass, an expansivepalette of shifting textures and density creates striking, unexpected contrasts. A remarkably seamless wash of acoustic and digital sounds offers new meaning to the term prerecorded track, as the piece picks up steam and arrivesat a forceful, abrupt end. To perform the piece, you'll need an audio system capable of playing the prerecorded audio tracks from a laptop computer via a small digital audio interface connected to an audio mixer. Downloadinformation is provided in the score. Dur: 7:15

TRAINS OF THOUGHT began life as a slightly longer electroacoustic sextet for a sultry combination of instruments that deserves more repertoire: bass clarinet, baritone saxophone, French horn, trombone, euphonium, and tuba. This initial, more intimate version was commissioned in 2015 by Paul Kile, Director of Bands at Edina High School in Edina, Minnesota, for the Cochran Chamber Commissioning Project. Halfway into the enjoyable process of composing it, I couldn't stop thinking how compelling it would be if someday I expanded the music to suit the textures of a full wind band.

Two years later, Adam Campagna and the W.F. West Wind Ensemble in Chehalis, Washington offered me the opportunity to act on my impulse to adapt the original work for band. The two versions share many of the same themes and accompaniment track textures, but early into the adaptation process, I discovered that a broadened version of the music demanded a fresh approach to the materials. I nipped, tucked, and re-arranged the phrases and motives, and the result is that the chamber version is akin to a painter's watercolor or line drawing prototype of what eventually becomes an enormous oil canvas.

Why trains? In 2014 my Vermont composer friend Dennis Bathory-Kitsz happened to post a short video on Facebook of a neighborhood Amtrak train zipping past his lens and microphone at full speed. There was something hauntingly beautiful about the particular chords and rhythms of that moment, and after replaying the clip several times I sensed that maybe sometime in the future, I could make use of these evocative sounds. I asked Dennis to return to the edge of the tracks and collect more audio samples. After I catalogued the pitches and patterns so that I could view them as musical elements, I stowed the edited files away for an unknown project— never guessing the amount of joy I'd get creating not one, but two iterations from those recordings.

Everyone experiences the elusive feeling of repeatedly pondering something, and— with or without our permission— sensing the concept rattle down an endless set of internal tracks. Soon those thoughts wander somewhere else, sometimes related, and just as often, not. Our psyches dance between that which is linear and that which appears from seemingly nowhere in a waking dream-state. Whether we're losing our train of thought as our focus derails, or are trying our best to hold on to it, our minds have tracks of their own.