Singing roads

Recently our esteemed blogger Raji posted a note on the musical happenings abounding in Chennai. Wistfully thinking of partaking in all those and desirous of seeing the spring event 'Thyagarajostava' some day, I recalled a newspaper report some months ago about singing roads. Yes, you did not read wrong, singing roads.

Now imagine you living by the roadside and a car speeds through and you hear refrains of say ‘enthoru mahaanu bhavulu’…how would that sound? Well that is roughly what this is all about. Specially constructed roads that emit musical tones as cars speed through.

The first of the musical roads in California was installed by Honda in Lancaster. When Honda cars went over it, it would hum the ‘William Tell’ or Lone Ranger Overture. The idea was to have it as a marketing campaign. I do not know if it was done for a limited time or if the locals have gone crazy with the tune after some months of hearing it. Japan who started the concept has a few melody roads and South Korea has one that plays ‘Mary had a little lamb’.

Basically what they do is put rumble strips with special spacing (narrower the strip – higher the pitch) so that you get different pitches. The interesting part is that it is designed for specific cars. In the case of the Lancaster road, it was designed for a Honda Civic’s tires and based on an average speed of 55mph. If you questioned what happened when other cars drove through it, the answer is you got other noises, which may or may not resemble a tune. Thus it became a nice Honda campaign targeted at users of the Civic, the young crowd.

The idea caught on, it is now filmed and popular on youtube, some people even tried other ideas like driving backward to see what happens (answer = vague noises like the devil singing). Lots of visitors drove by to experience the tunes and some residents have started going bonkers. Tourism to Lancaster increased. Now the city mayor is considering having various jingles on the road and charging companies for the advertising ‘roads’. Good idea actually - now that taxes have come down due to reduced house prices. Here is the Lancaster road experience..

How did it come about? Well, it started in Japan really - According to the Guardian: “the system was the brainchild of Shizuo Shinoda, who accidentally scraped some markings into a road with a bulldozer before driving over them and realizing that they helped to produce a variety of tones.” Spluch adds - With 68 percent of highway accidents in Korea caused by inattentive, sleeping or speeding drivers, the Korean Highway Corp., as well as the Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute in Japan, came up with the idea of musical road surfaces to keep motorists entertained but also to reduce their speed and help them stay alert.

Here is a link to the details of the Melody road in Japan – and another. Those interested in the Youtube video check this out.

If you want to hear it all in the words of the Honda Engineers, check out ‘The Civic project’ on Youtube. There are many more of related videos on the youtube, so check around and enjoy.

Of course the only problem would be hearing ‘enthopru mahaanu bhavulu’ the whole year around and at all times. I am sure that even if it sounded like Maharajapuram Santhanam or Dr Balamurali Krishna, it would be a little too much on your nerves…But I think a good idea would be to have Gayathri manthara or Suprabhatam instead.The gayathri manthra tune has come out as ring tones anyway.

Other articles

LA Times and another detailed one.

Pic from LA times article - thanks

WISHING YOU ALL HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND A GREAT 2009