Fwd: [oddmusic] Japan's melody roads play music as you drive

possibly i should have sent his to metatuning but i thought it would have wider interest

-----Original Message-----
From: mIEKAL aND [mailto:dtv@...]
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 09:16 PM
To: oddmusic@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [oddmusic] Japan's melody roads play music as you drive

Japan's melody roads play music as you drive

Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
Tuesday November 13, 2007
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,,2209972,00.html

Motorists used to listening to the radio or their favourite tunes on
CDs may have a new way to entertain themselves, after engineers in
Japan developed a musical road surface.

A team from the Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute has built a
number of "melody roads", which use cars as tuning forks to play
music as they travel.

The concept works by using grooves, which are cut at very specific
intervals in the road surface. Just as travelling over small speed
bumps or road markings can emit a rumbling tone throughout a vehicle,
the melody road uses the spaces between to create different notes.

Depending on how far apart the grooves are, a car moving over them
will produce a series of high or low notes, enabling cunning
designers to create a distinct tune.

Patent documents for the design describe it as notches "formed in a
road surface so as to play a desired melody without producing simple
sound or rhythm and reproduce melody-like tones".

There are three musical strips in central and northern Japan - one of
which plays the tune of a Japanese pop song. Notice of an impending
musical interlude, which lasts for about 30 seconds, is highlighted
by coloured musical notes painted on to the road. According to
reports, the system was the brainchild of Shizuo Shinoda, who
accidentally scraped some markings into a road with a bulldozer
before driving over them and realising that they helped to produce a
variety of tones.

The designs were refined by engineers at the institute in Sapporo.
The team has previously worked on new technologies including the use
of infra-red light to detect dangerous road surfaces.

But motorists expecting to create their own hard rock soundtrack
could find themselves struggling to live the dream. Not only is the
optimal speed for achieving melody road playback a mere 28mph, but
locals say it is not always easy get the intended sound.

"You need to keep the car windows closed to hear well," wrote one
Japanese blogger. "Driving too fast will sound like playing fast
forward, while driving around 12mph has a slow-motion effect, making
you almost car sick."

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