You're, listening to song exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. My name is vacation, getaway song exploder is sponsored by Dave's killer, bread, actually love Dave's killer bread, but they gave me a script to read so appeared as attention shoppers. We now have taste in the bread, Aisle Dave's killer. bread, that's right, an organic bread, that's no longer a sedative for your taste, buds, Dave's killer. Bread is on a mission to make the most of the loaf. To rid the world of Gmos, high fructose corn syrup and artificial ingredients and plant the seeds of good and all the they killer, taste killer, texture, always organic Dave's killer, bread, bread amplified song, Voter is brought to you by progressive. Are you thinking more about how to tighten up your budget these days, drivers who save by switching you progressive, save

seven hundred dollars on average and customers can qualify for an average of six discounts on they sign up a little off your rate. Each month goes a long way get a quote today at progressive dot com, progressive casualty, Prince Company and affiliates national annual average insurance savings by new customers surveyed who saved with progressive between June two thousand and twenty and may two thousand and twenty one potential savings will vary discounts and are not available in all states. In situations. Steve Rash, is a composer who is one of the pioneers minimalist. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music and then your times called them America's greatest living composer. I had the ink. But above all, on her of getting to speak to Steve Rash about his peace, different trains, which was written for string quartet and prerecorded performance day. Different trains was first performed in nineteen. Eighty, eight by the chronic quitter.

they released? A recording of it in nineteen, eighty nine, which won the Grammy for best classical contemporary composition. Different cranes is a piece about World WAR Ii and the Holocaust is made up of three movements: one America before the war to Europe during the war and three after the war. This episode Steve Rush breaks down the first movement, which was inspired by his own childhood experiences. My name is Steve Rice, the first Things of different trains happened where they offer from the Kronos quartet to write them a piece. The Kronos quartet is a string quartet it started in the early seventies by David, Harrington and other positions in the this Septica Bay Area there.

Specialty by far is new music, the importer What a background here is that a nineteen sixty five and sixty six, I did to tape pieces. One called It's going to rain, which is the first piece that was ever recorded in mine and then come out. I had to like open it. who's up and let some of the bluest blood come out to show them the pieces were about. Beach melody, Daniel Hamm, the kid whose voices on come out that I had to like when the boots. And that some of the booze I'd come out to show them better idea than come out to children come out to shooting come on. He showed him come out to show them come out to show them come out to show them come out to show them. but in you know in in nineteen eighty seven about then very you sit in this new sampler keyboard. I was discussing all this with my wife at the video artist and she shall use a sampler with for the Kronos peace. I say: well, great idea, but

Actually, no idea, you know what am I sadly so then I just three trips that I took as a child popped in my head. when I was one year or two years of years up to about five or six, I took cross country trains with by Nanny Virginia, whose will act as my mother, Ten years of my life, my mother, who was a singer and a lyricist, and my father, who was a lawyer, managed to be Married for one year- and born thirty six in nineteen, thirty seven they divorced. My mother went back to L A where she was from a father's day in New York where he was from, which meant I'd spent six months with one in six months, with the other Well, there were three thousand miles apart in those days you didn't fly unless you were, if a millionaire, so

Five years of my life was six months here. Six months they train trips, both ways so it was great to look out the window and see cowboy country and then go back and see the New York and Would he and the train, which is a very that was so? Are you going to die Vanguard university tablecloth civilized travel, but you know it was a very complex part of my childhood. And then, all of I don't know years that I do this one thousand eight hundred and thirty nine one thousand five hundred and forty. Ninety four, what was going on in the world. While I was riding these train- and we all know. what's going on in the world is that there's? Mr Hitler was trying to take over the world and he was great. Every Jew and every jewish kid, and I thought there, but for the grace of God go, I I was born in America and if I had been born in Europe,

This implies emblazoned in my mind, different trains, so I first thought was held revisit that the sound of the train do the train, whistles and an Virginia's voice. She had a very melodic voice for a woman in her 70s, so I I ordered a Virginia, whose idea, different time to time. I had a Sony Walkman pro tape, recorder running and I said like where the records year, when I said I'm going to make a pizza and she you know she's assault. That's crazy, but why not? If he wants to do it, so I good record, a number of our conversations, how many of which centred around reminiscing about these strange drips, which is something we share, different trains ethic down, and then I thought I need to find opponent. In the nineteen, thirty and forty six payment,

Would you know general I be the concierge, if you like, of the train when Martin Luther king was coming up one of his important. I was a Philip Randolph who was the head of the Pullman Porters Union and he. send a large and important part of the black community and so the Pullman porters as a group we're formative force and the civil rights movement. So I was able to travel gonNA to Washington DC and meet with large Davis. It was a retired Pullman Porter on these transcontinental trains and he was glad to speak about the old days. The crack train from New York that melodic characters to his voice, grabs me and what It was start playing the back and when I got something I ran it through. The sampler, the correct

and from New York New York. The criteria for selecting a particular speech fragment basically was two things. To be musical and it has to be meaningful and turns out was a line of that it starts off with a from Chicago to New York from Chicago to New York from Chicago some Chicago to New York, it's Virginia Now that's very emblematic of, like is kind of like all aboard in oh she's, talking about a trip to too well known cities that everybody knows, but it's the damp but eight I am but Inga about it. her speech melody. It says this is a keeper, that's where the music from different trains comes from. basic idea was string, instruments are going to double the speech melody time, but it s a flat f. so I would be sitting here with a typical airplane. Back

the pencil in my hand and music notebook, my hand, a keyboard, to check the speech melody and that's going to be the be all of the other, gives it a little bit more weight than a violin and the villa That is Virginia. Oh here's Virginia from Chicago from Chicago to New York? And then Mr Davis was double by the cello, back The the dog later on from Chicago to New York,

comes back as far by in nineteen, thirty, nine or ten yards enlightened tearing out and all of a sudden. The date of the whole piece is clear night entailing might entail. three thousand nine hundred and thirty nine one thousand nine hundred and thirty nine and he's thirty, nine, nineteen, forty nineteen, forty one, nineteen, thirty, nine, thirty, nineteen, thirty, nine nineteen, thirty nineteen, forty nineteen, forty, four nineteen, forty thirteen, forty four nineteen, forty nineteen, forty four nineteen, forty nineteen, forty one and then Virginia says: nineteen

Forty one. I think it must have been nineteen forty one. I guess it must depend and she's thinking at the beginning of world war. Two nineteen point one. I guess it must have been two piano lessons as a child didn't get very far. I later became trained as a drummer, and a lot of my music is very progressive. our different range is gonna progressing and it was very but in fact it has a very basic drumming rudiment called a paradox: which is the locomotive and and I'll just go on a table over here, left right, left, left right left right right. struck me in my head is a drummer business. The engine. That's going to drive this piece

David Harrington playing the first violin and Jon Jon Renau playing the cello and you're playing the parrot is like crazy. A lot of the writing throughout the piece His various forms of the pair of them, the paradiddle, players kind of got into it: the besides the string quartet and the human voices you hear trained, SAS, particularly train whistles I lived in lower Manhattan, not too far from a record store for Jnr and I went over there while I was just beginning the piece and I started browsing and lo and behold they had a section called train, sounds believe it or not. So I bought it. I remember

I called trains in trouble. The train whistles in America are perfect forests or fifty noticed the wide intervals at you know hey. While on a long Okay, now we're going to add these other sounds and we're going to mess with them in the computer to we get them to really work with the strings and voices the New York, to LOS Angeles from New York, New York from New York, to LOS Angeles from New York, New York from New York, to LOS Angeles from New York from New York speech, melody, which is something that happens. We don't.

get back the way. I speak the way you speak the way, my nanny Virginia. The way Mr Davis speaks. He is as in indicative of who they are has a photograph. Some would say, is more revealing the crack chain from me all at the fastest train, but I realized that everybody would be speaking in a different tempo, because when you speak, you don't think about what you are bound by Bob. I take it now. He s not the way it works you to speak, but when you, make a loop out of it, bomb buddy habitable. Some shit. Poverty are ok, and then you're going to go to one of the fastest trains planet, the fastest train de da de Da Da Da Da Da, it's faster, unrelated? It's not like well twice as fast already are triplet equals. Forget it it's just another temper How are musicians going to play with this?

they can go from one section to the next, a lot of people, you know will say Hey man put about your computer and slow from their respective until he gave them on the same temper. But it's like saying take The people who were like your mother, who are upright representative of the black community in the nineteen 1940s and just sort of fix him up. That just seem like to be my stomach churn but if the basic idea was bring instruments are going to double the speech. Melody. When you better figure out how it works so the solution. What makes the performance of the peace possible backing track? Different trains was written for a string quartet perform live, but, along with the live instruments, there are additional prerecorded layers that play at the same time. So the Kronos quartet had to record those parts before they could ever play at life. So you, here between

twelve and sixteen string players. Would you actually read the recording and when you're hearing a live performance and the recording was going to Russian Hill studios in San Francisco and first couple of days, we just me and the engineers working out two different click tracks, so first that buddy that occurs figure out that some shit, parliament put their quarter and articles whatever it is, and then it shifts to another number plot of the fastest times. So musicians come in. They hear, let's say two bars of the tempo for the very first thing, and they play the first part. now you gotta go to the next fragment

So you re wind the tape a bit and you switch over to click track, be which is at the other tempo positions for under headphones a year again, but that that and the rough on a new temper ass manner. It's masters who boreas Borja and I mean the boards with a capital l. These different sections are

and then put together an hey they work ass. I had built my whole musical life on multiples of exact, same instruments play against themselves in Canada or in some kind of imitative counterpoint. So what interested me was the kind of web of sound that's created by inch, image of the same timbre enter. walking anywhere, where you don't know who's doing what and you get lost in his larger fat. and various things in the fabric pop out to you as a site

to acoustic reality. You know we can't predict, but they're really there and it also enables you to thicken the plot musically to make richer harmonies more complex rhythms, more as to the voices in the counterpart of texture of the music? in the recording studio. I heard first one layer, especially at the second, the both those back. When you add the third The galaxy has Five part and the voices

enlighten three thousand nine hundred and thirty nine, three thousand nine hundred and thirty, nine, three thousand nine hundred and thirty nine, three thousand nine hundred and thirty nine, three thousand nine hundred and thirty nine, three thousand nine hundred and thirty nine four dubbing fest, I mean we're, not the Beatles or anything like that, but I mean hey, you know we had sex Jackson. They only had for the backing tape and the finnish reporting came I exact same so we are hearing in the studio, the finished piece, and this was really exciting. The second and third movements of different brains, shift their focus away from Steve, Reisch experiences in America and turn to Europe in the Holocaust. For those movements he sampled voices of holocaust survivors The original idea for the piece was just

me ever Junior Mr Davis, and then, when I started thinking about the times that I'd actually made these ships a holocaust came to mind because I could have been a part of it. I was the same age. So I do there was an archive of Holocaust survivors recordings at Yale. Just happy people talk about their experiences in Auschwitz and other camps. and that you know was a pretty intense experience to sit up there and some library at with it, with headphones on your into one incredible thing. After the other and copying that off and onto tape, can I ask you why you chose to discuss the first movement for this episode and not the second or third movement? I think I get choreographed a lot, a lot of used by dancers and occasionally not very often, but occasionally they wanted to different trains. And I specified to the publisher. I said they want a car graph. The first movement is fine, but not the second or third movement.

and I feel that the use of the Holocaust survivors voices was a p. Decision, and that a control, the music, and when it comes to dealing with the Holocaust, I feel like it just It works. The way it is leave it alone, I was a touring musician for forty years with my own ensemble and part of my ensemble was a string quartet and whenever we did a concert, different trains was the last piece on the program and that's where it goes. I mean it's. The anchor trains, different trains, different trains.

What are you feeling right now, as you listen to this? Well, happily, I moved a good piece really can't be judged. Until years later I mean isn't just hearing Virginia and the memory of her personally, it's how everybody in the piece demanded deserves a perfect.

Say how do I know whether anybody would like a piece of music of mine I dunno. So what have I got if I'm almost moved to tears? Maybe you will be too and in a number of cases has proved to be the case and I feel blessed because of the different trains, trains and now here's different trains, movement, one America, before the war by Steve, rash in its entirety,

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the fastest fastest fastest, fastest, fastest, fastest, fastest fastest runner, the fastest train,

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the the. Goodnight goodnight goodnight in three thousand one hundred and thirty nine in like it's everywhere,

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one thousand nine hundred and forty what four thousand one hundred and nineteen four thousand one hundred and forty one more visit song, exploder dot net you'll find links the stream or download different trains. Steve race also has a new book out called conversations in it. He speaks to other artists like the late Stevenson, Home Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead Brian Eno and David Harrington the Kronos quartet, among others, there's a link to the book on the song exploder website, as well, thanks to square

as for sponsoring the show square spaces in all. In one platform that lets you build a beautiful website for your business or your art or your banned. If you want to sell stuff, they ve got a commerce templates. If you want to make a blog, they give you buttons see your audience can share your posts on social media, and you can have multiple contributors seeking work on your site together, check out square space, dot com for a free trial. When you re the launch go to square space, dot com, slash explode her to save ten percent off your first purchase of a website or domain How is sponsored by borrow a new kind of furniture company everything they make is designed to make life easier. The furniture is easy to assemble. The fabrics are stain resistant. The shelves are, to install and the delivery is free right now you can get

me five dollars off your first order at burrow, dot com, slash song, exploder, that's borough; b: U, R, R, o w dot com, slash song exploder for seventy five dollars off, borrow dot com, slash song exploder. Song exploder is made by me, along with the show's theme music. I produced this episode with Craig early and Casey deal with artwork by Carlos Lerma Visa clearance by Catherine Smith and production assistance from Chloe Parker, song explode or as a proud member of Radio Tokyo from PR acts and network of independent listener, supported artist, don't pay you can learn more about our shows at Radio Tokyo, Radiotopia FM you can. Me on Twitter and Instagram at receive here way follow the show at song exploder. You can also the song exploder T shirt at song, exploder, dot, net, slash shirt,

I'm Rishi case your way. Thanks for listening, radio to. There's. A brand new show joining radio Tokyo called or products every week, Hist friends, Leah Wright, Rigueur and Kelly Carter Jackson are going to dive deep into the cultural significance of the Oprah Winfrey Show, and you might know, Kelly Carter Jackson because she's the host of another radio Toby a show this day an esoteric political history on over damage. The two friends gonna talk about why Oprah matters to culture and how open made so much of the culture from diets to book, club, to celebrity interviews to make overs and our spin offs. If you love Oprah, or even just want to learn more about her. You have to check out o products. The study of the queen of talk wednesdays, starting March Thirtieth, listen at radio Toby, a dot fm or wherever you listen to podcasts