Little Hobby

I have a little hobby, a little game I play in my head... which surely my musician friends will understand.  Heck, they might even try it, too.

It's called: "What Chord, O Conductor?"

It is best played in a generally quiet, rural area, either early in the morning or late at night.  The Conductor mentioned isn't that of an orchestra, but that of a locomotive.  Yes, the game is thus:

Can I identify the exact chord played by a train whistle? (Extra credit is earned if no piano or other point of reference is used :-)

This morning, I heard the lonely wail of an A-minor-seventh (Am7) chord, in second inversion (E-G-A-C)*.  Each train's whistle evokes a different mood -- sometimes whimsical, sometimes weird.  But usually, they consist of 3 or 4 tones in a tight cluster.  I often wonder whose job it is to tune those whistles to play those chords, and does each "train-whistle-tuner-person" have their own personal favorite tone grouping?

If you know anything about that the train-whistle-tuning process, please post a comment.  In the meantime, there's music all around us... Happy listening!

* (Yes, I suppose this could be a C6 chord in first inversion, but I digress.)

No, not the one in Scotland.

Heading out to Eastern Montana, in a 4-seater Mooney, like this one.

Today's post finds me at the end of a two-day out-of-town tower-work gig in Glasgow, MT.  (Excuse my gratuitous use of hyphens.)  The daytime temp is in the 50's, the sky is clear and blue, and the wind is tolerable.  However, being on the eastern part of the treasure state, the topography is not quite as eventful as it is in lovely Flathead County.  Here's a picture I took... now imagine a 360° view of this:

...Yes, that's Valley County in a nutshell.  The upside of this terrain is that there's nothing — and I mean nothing — to obstruct the view of Montana's "big sky".  Taking in landscape like this makes one feel... well, in a word:  small.

Sunset

Here's another something that made me feel small today:

...Watching my boss climb halfway up a 200' tower.  Not for the faint of heart.  The highest I've been on an edifice was about 160'... but that one had stair steps.  And handrails.  Today, the boss-man had neither of those.  It was an impressive sight to behold.


Tomorrow, we head back home.  No one wants to stay in a faraway hotel any longer than one absolutely has to.  We'll have to come back here again soon, for there's more work to be done.  But since the Dear Bride is due to give birth in late April, these trips will have to wait, when that time comes.

Thank God it's been a safe trip.