The Subway Sings Somewhere

New York City's newer computerized subway cars, first introduced about five years ago, have a new kind of power transformer that, when the train starts up, makes a series of tones that sound very musical, frequently identified as the opening notes to "Somewhere," from West Side Story. I recorded those sounds, and many others, in the subway last month, and shot accompanying video, and created a song out of the field recordings, combining them with harmonica, guitar, and some percussion loops, although most of the rhythm bed is looped track noise.

The animated artwork you see at the two-minute mark is the wonderful "Masstransiscope, by artist and filmmaker Bill Brand. The abandoned subway station shown at the end is the Cortlandt Street stop on the R/W, one of the World Trade Center stops abandoned after 9/11. I used to get off the train there every day to go to work.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• subway
• harmonica
• field-recordings
• transit
• nyc
• song

[ficara]

I'm not sure, Larry. I know it's an AC transformer that makes that noise; the old trains ran on standard subway power (600vDC) but the new ones need AC for all the computerized nonsense. You hear those tones as the train is running too, but they tend to stay constant.

[SuperCoolDude2014]

Rofl

[itsaguinness]

like it. good work

[metropod]

the notes of the sound are an aduio illision for lack of a better word. the three notes heard are all rising, while the first three notes of the other section are two rises and a drop.

[Tr1sh4Lynn]

More atonal than I usually like in music, but I thought it was/is still very cool.

[locustvalleystring]

Very cool. Nice work, Ken. I am curious about those tones....The power curve for starting a train smoothly is a complicated process. The trolleys in Philly originally had a jerk start and the designers had to use the 4th derivative ("jerk" derivative) to solve the problem. I suspect the tones are a clue to the required torque at the wheels for a smooth powerful start. Larry

[GregQzag]

I have been fortunate to ride the Subway in Berlin, (U-Bahn) Paris (Métro) and London (The Tube). Although I havent been back in 10 years, NYC will always be home.

Thank you for this. ★★★★★ !

Greg

[UncleVRoy]

cool!