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Arrangements to Generate the Locomotive Sound<\/strong><\/p>\n Sound arrangements in composing of train songs have always been a matter of creativity as musicians have had to use conventional \/ non-conventional musical instruments to generate the locomotive sound and create a rhythm out of it.<\/p>\n While listening to the song of the train, it seems easy to set a melody on the constant rhythm of the train. But actually, it is all the more difficult as the melody, at times has change of scale or change of tune also, which have to be aptly accompanied on rhythm. Changes like the pick up, roll or even sometimes changing patterns are required at appropriate places in the composition.<\/p>\n On the other hand, if the rhythm is constant like the sound of the train, it would be all the more challenging to synchronize the melody with it. Hence, creating a train rhythm, which can sound constant and yet can accompany a melody, is a real creative task.<\/p>\n Different composers have tried in their own distinct ways and in different tempos to make the sound of the running train. Let\u2019s look at a few examples of popular songs.<\/p>\n Toofan Mail<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The importance or significance of rhythm increased in the orchestra, and in the overall sound production in any composition, in the early 50\u2019s. Prior to that, the rhythm used to be not so loud and largely the overall sound used to be dominated by the melody section. In order to understand how a train song would have been in those days, let us take the example of a famous song Toofan Mail<\/em> from film Jawab<\/em> (1942), sung by Kanan Devi and composed by Kamal Dasgupta. This song was not actually picturised on a train but the subject of the song was ‘Toofan Mail’ or ‘Frontier Mail’ train, which used to be the fastest train of that era.<\/p>\n The overall composition has a high tempo but interestingly, the rhythm is almost minimal. The rhythmic sound in repetitive pattern was generated with the help of the cello, which is a bass instrument in the strings section. A sound of steam blow was super imposed over the cello\u2019s rhythmic sound to generate the feel of a locomotive. The whistle is the most important sound in any steam locomotive. In this song, a high note was played on the clarinet to give a filler of a whistle.<\/p>\n Toofan Mail<\/strong> <\/em>(Jawab,<\/em> 1942) Kamal Dasgupta \/ Pandit Madhur \/ Kanan Devi<\/span><\/p>\n