Summary: At its essence, this episode is about the experience of traveling west on Amtrak passenger trains in the United States. Since about 2008, I've personally traveled west on many an Amtrak train, so many that I have difficulty counting the exact number. Some trips were to visit friends, some were to visit girlfriends at the time (one who, at that time, was living in Northern Montana), some were because I was living out west for graduate school. But, each trip, the traveling experience seemed so palpably meaningful. And with each subsequent trip, I became more aware and reflective of each experience: how it relates to the experiences of my fellow travelers, the workers on the trains, but also how the experience was in important ways a deeply affective, emotive, embodied experience. So, with a recent traveling experience, I recorded a portion of my journey, as the train traveled through the American Midwest at night. I then created original music (written, played, and recorded by myself) to help convey, complicate, and expand the expression of the soundscape and its meaning. In this episode, I present this weaving of soundscape and music, and narrate my experience of train travel. It's a digital audio story of my train experiences.
