Grade 1

"Blues Train" introduces the blues scale to young musicians, and each section gets an opportunity to play the blues scale. This is a fun piece that I think young musicians will enjoy.

The percussion parts provide the train sounds. I envisioned this piece as sort of a story in which the train arrives at the station to pick up passengers and then makes stops along the way to pick up additional passengers, represented by the different sections of the orchestra. The diminuendo at the end represents the train fading away into the distance, followed by the vocal “Shhh” at the end by the performers at the train’s final stop.