Introduction

‘Different Trains’ ​is a three-movement piece for string quartet and tape written by Steve Reich in 1988. It is a contemporary classical (minimal) music - a genre of Western art music. During World War II, Reich made train journeys between New York and Los Angeles to visit his parents, who had separated. Years later, he pondered the fact that, as a Jew, had he been in Europe instead of the United States at that time, he might have been travelling in Holocaust trains1. In this article I will refer to the first movement of the piece: ‘America, before the war’. ‘Watermelon Man’ is a jazz standard written by Herbir Hancock in 1962 for his album ‘Takin off’. First version featuring improvisations by Freddie Hubbard and Dexter Gordon was released as a grooving hard bop record, reached the Top 100 of the pop chart. The tune was released by Cuban percussionist Mongo Santamaría as a Latin pop single and it became a surprise hit, reaching No. 10 on the pop chart, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 19982. In this article I will refer to a radically re-worked version of the tune, combining elements of funk, from the album ‘Head Haunters’ (1973). In this article I want to bring forward an analysis of two musical links I have found between these two pieces: additive texture - music builds up layer by layer, and long-held notes - these are notes sustained over busy and rapid accompaniments. To access and clarify, this publication includes a CD, free of any additional charge, with relevant audio tracks!

1 ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Different_Trains 2 ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_Man_(composition)

Additive Texture In the beginning of both pieces (and to an extent again later in the piece, will be discussed later), different instruments fulfilling various functions enter one after another, time lagged.

The starting point in different trains is a pre-recorded string quartet playing broken chords in semi-quavers. Three seconds later enters a percussion instrument, sounds like two pieces of metal hitting each other, providing a pulse of quavers. Next, the live playing string quartet. First enters violin i, and three bars later enters cello. Both instruments play broken chords in semi-quaver, thus widen the background for the next two instruments: violin ii and viola enter simultaneously, mimicking train whistle (long held notes). This whole thing takes place within a 17 seconds interval. In context, this build up can give the impression of the train engine starting to work harder and harder as the train speeding up out of station alongside the quaver pulse given by the two metals hitting each other that gives the feeling of motion on the trails, and the whistle releasing steam; all these made texturally, by layers building up, rather than accelerating tempo.

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​https://www.stretta-music.com/en/reich-different-trains-1988-nr-343122.html

As mentioned, in DIfferent Trains the different lines enter with a certain lag of about 3 bars, but essentially fulfill a similar function as an ostinato. These are in this case micro-units of broken chords that with some augmentation and inversions build similar lines with only slight modifications of pitch, articulation and dynamics to construct the harmony. These are characteristics of the genre, and really what minimal music is all about: ​repetitive patterns or pulses, steady drones, consonant harmony, and reiteration of musical phrases or 4 smaller units. In Watermelon Man on the other hand, the music builds up significantly slower. And what is that? Because as mentioned before the building up texture in Different Trains can be compared with train speeding out of the station, made sharply and rather industrially. In Watermelon Man however the music builds up slowly, allowing every line to be presented and to sink in the listeners ears. The music starts with voices generated by blowing into beer bottles, providing initial melodic and rhythmic patterns. After 19 seconds enters a pipe instrument that plays a repeated note (A). At 00:46 enters bass guitar, providing additional melody and a heavily syncopated rhythm. Then, at 00:58 drums come in and clear the picture. All the conflicting rhythms are arranged beautifully among the beats provided by the drums. At 01:18 enters a keyboard/synth, playing another melodic line in two parallel voices. As opposed to Different Trains and minimal music generally, Watermelon man is rich with polyrhythm, wide range of pitches, dynamics and syncopation.

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*Note: does not represent the time lag etc. but only each individual part. This makes the build up much more interesting in my opinion, since every instrument provides additional rhythms and melodies, and some parts are integrated with each other, for example the shout and pipe are two separate instruments, but when woven together they create one line of music, where the syncopated shout is the upbeat before the pipe, which looks like that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_music

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5 Notated orally by the author

In the end of Watermelon Man the instruments fade out in reverse order, with slight modifications; it does not happen in Different Trains, where the music just comes to a halt after a sequence of long held notes C-Bb-Bb. [WM 5:13-6:28] [DT 8:50-8:58] In Different Trains this build up reoccurs throughout the piece, usually right after a long held note, in this order (cello-violin) or the other way around (violin-cello); whereas in Watermelon Man it only occurs in the beginning of the piece, and once again at the end of it in reverse order.

I guess that an explanation for why it occurs multiple times in Different Trains but not in Watermelon Man would be that in Different trains, after the beginning, the pre-recorded quartet does not stop playing. Thus, even if the live violin and cello stop playing, the course of the music still goes on, driven by the pre-recorded quartet. In Watermelon Man however all the instruments are played live, so if they all stop together the music will come to a halt. Also, in Different Trains the build up takes place over just a couple of seconds, but over more than a whole minute in Watermelon Man, which makes it less applicable.

Long Held Notes

Both pieces consist of fast accompaniment of quavers in Watermelon Man and semi-quavers in Different Trains. Yet, in both there are often contrastingly longer notes in the melody held over these rapid accompaniments. Follow me in an exploration of when they occur, how they function, and how they differ. Firstly, consider the following tables, showing the occurrence of these notes with respect to time code: Different Trains (spotify) Time Code

Single/Paired, Pitch

1:44-1:49

Single, F

1:53-1:58

Single, F

2:03-2:11

Paired, F-G

2:16-2:26

Paired, F-G

2:30-2:39

Paired, F-G

*Notice that this chart does not count every long held note in the piece, but it is a portion that highly represents the rest of the piece. Watermelon Man (Spotify) Time Code

Pitch

2:28

Eb

2:36

Eb (octave lower)

2:42

F

2:49

Eb (octave lower)

3:21

Eb

3:28

Eb->F (octave lower, F is a grace note)

3:35

F

3:41

F (octave lower)

To put in context the pitches, written down are the pitches:

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*Notice that this notated extract only represents the pitches and NOT the length of the notes. The first thing I noticed when I looked in the charts is the fact that whilst the long held notes occur over a period of only about one and a half minutes in Watermelon Man, they appear all over the place throughout the whole 9 minutes of Different Trains. This is due to the contextual difference between the pieces: Watermelon Man is a jazz piece, and it is in its nature to have different instruments solo, in which is where the long held notes happen in this case-in the saxophone section. Different Trains on the other hand is a minimalist music without any clear sense of different parts, but rather a long continuous idea that keeps varying, and are played by violin II and the viola, which throughout the piece are mostly dedicated to this purpose, in contrast from the saxophone in Watermelon Man where it also plays as an integrated instrument in the accompaniment and other places such as here [1:45-2:00] where it performs call and response with the synth. Another thing I noticed is the multiple functions these notes fulfill throughout. In Watermelon Man the notes are features of the ‘head’ (the main melody-the tune) in the original recording (1964), and it appears in the standard itself:

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Notated orally by the author

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Though modified in length and pitch to extend, the relationship between every two long held notes (with short linking part between) originates from the tune, thus fulfilling a structural function. These long and steady notes come contrastingly from the very fast and syncopated accompaniment that keeps playing underneath it, and keeping the music alive and on forward moving. Similarly, in Different Trains the long held notes primarily come to represent the train whistle among all the hustle and bustle of the train engine (which is represented by the busy accompaniment). But while the single notes purely satisfy this need, pair notes also provide a very simple melody, that lay out sort of cadences, thus fulfilling an harmonic function as well. For example, in the three pairs provided in the table above the accompaniment plays a broken Gm7 chord (G-Bb-D-F). Hence when violin II and the viola introduce a melody of F to G, they actually play the minor seven of the chord, which is a dissonant, and then resolve to G, which is the root-consonant. Lastly, I would love to discuss a function these notes have in common in both pieces: tempo drone. Where two following parts in the piece are played with different tempo, the composers are slowly drifting from one tempo to the next i.e. rubato, instead of a drastic and rapid change to avoid dissonance. Yet, to prepare the ground more tenderly and to ease the shift from one part to another, the composers sustain a note held over the transition. Thus, the notes function as a pedal and help the music move continuously. [WM 2:28-2:34] [DT 3:38-3:42]

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​https://outsidepedestrian.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/watermelon-man1.jpg

Cheeky stuff For a laugh: while Watermelon Man is an innocent and humble piece, Different Trains seems a little OFF THE RAILS Did you know? Hancock claims that the popularity of his piece, due primarily to ​Mongo Santamaría​, paid his bills for about 6 years! Did you know? Hancock once told "I remember the cry of the watermelon man making the rounds through the back streets and alleys of Chicago. The wheels of his wagon beat out the rhythm on the cobblestones." Reichs piece however was a novel experiment, using recorded speech as a source for melodies; these are Reich's governess Virginia and Lawrence Davis, a Pullman porter, reminisce about train travel in the U.S. while American train sounds are heard in the background. Did you know? As part of Reichs 80th birthday celebrations Different Trains was performed ​at Edge Hill station, Liverpool​ by the London​ Contemporary Orchestra. The performance was accompanied by a specially made film by Bill Morrison.