One of the things that I knew I would miss about San Francisco, especially my Richmond District neighborhood, was the fog horns I could hear lowing from the Golden Gate. It’s a narrow path with a lot of shipping traffic in notoriously poor visibility, so there’s a fairly elaborate concert that goes on whenever the weather is foggy (read: always). It seems there’s at least one on the shore, and if there’s more than one ship passing through, you get some very beautiful low brass chords.
Well, as luck would have it, over here in Oakland, from my Lower Hills perch, I can hear the trains at all hours as they run up and down the line along the bay a little more than two miles from here. I love listening to the different train horns, even in the middle of the night, although I imagine they must drive the folks in the flatlands absolutely bananas.
The train horns are tuned to five or six-note chords that are beautiful and sometimes surprising. You have the standard “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” type of configuration…
Download audio file (train-horns-diminished.mp3)
…as well as another fairly standard pentatonic-based offering.
Download audio file (train-horns-pentatonic.mp3)
Sometimes there are beautifully voiced major seventh chords…
Download audio file (train-horns-major-7th.mp3)
My favorite is this more sinister one that seems to have been lifted from Bernard Herrmann’s score for Vertigo.
Download audio file (train-horns-harm-minor.mp3)
There’s another even creepier one that I keep hearing, but I can’t quite work out the pitches. Another time, perhaps.
