SYNOPSIS:
An 8 min, audio visual experience of a train journey.
It captures the rhythms, moods, colors & jolts of a journey... everything that makes a train ride in india so special.
A video art project by: PARVEZ IMAM
Produced by: f-20 Communications
WHY A 'TRAIN SONG'?
Train journeys have always fascinated me. As a child, I used to wait for the summer vacations, to be able to travel. The longer the train journey, the more excited I would be. Sitting next to the window, looking out at an ever changing panorama dancing to the rhythms of the train... rhythms that articulated every possible beat pattern, so poignantly.
It would send me into a meditative state of mind... often making me hum to the rhythm.
And it's not only the rhythms that change... the tone and the pitch also vary as the train runs across different settings. A railway crossing in a small village for example, always generates a particular sound, almost like a very fast roll on a snare accompanied with a soft touch on a high hat or a cymbal. Whereas, a railway crossing in a big city generates a completely different pattern, somewhat closer to tin drums or tom toms with a metallic sound.
The bushes and trees create a whistle, depending on how far they are from the train as it whizzes past them and how dense they are.
The bridges play like an accoustic bass and the engine's hoot has been evolving over the years to emote a trumpet or a saxophone .
Yet, it is never the same. The music carries on but the same trip across the same tracks plays a different music each time one travels by.
Train song is an ode to the railways that run across the length and breadth of India... ferrying people and goods, singing songs that only those can hear, who want to.
Parvez Imam
Train journeys have always fascinated me. As a child, I used to wait for the summer vacations, to be able to travel. The longer the train journey, the more excited I would be. Sitting next to the window, looking out at an ever changing panorama dancing to the rhythms of the train... rhythms that articulated every possible beat pattern, so poignantly.
It would send me into a meditative state of mind... often making me hum to the rhythm.
And it's not only the rhythms that change... the tone and the pitch also vary as the train runs across different settings. A railway crossing in a small village for example, always generates a particular sound, almost like a very fast roll on a snare accompanied with a soft touch on a high hat or a cymbal. Whereas, a railway crossing in a big city generates a completely different pattern, somewhat closer to tin drums or tom toms with a metallic sound.
The bushes and trees create a whistle, depending on how far they are from the train as it whizzes past them and how dense they are.
The bridges play like an accoustic bass and the engine's hoot has been evolving over the years to emote a trumpet or a saxophone .
Yet, it is never the same. The music carries on but the same trip across the same tracks plays a different music each time one travels by.
Train song is an ode to the railways that run across the length and breadth of India... ferrying people and goods, singing songs that only those can hear, who want to.
Parvez Imam
