The Singing Roads of Japan

Posted by Mike Richard on November 16, 2007
Filed under: Japan, Odds + Ends, Sidelines

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In 1899, Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. patent office, was famously quoted saying that “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

Evidently the Japanese didn’t get the memo. And you have to hand it to them - they certainly have no shortage of innovation. Their latest project - “The Melody Road” - is interesting to say the least. One wonders if these kinds of inane projects are tax-payer funded.

Japanese Melody Road

According to Techeblog:

…the ‘melody road’, can be seen above and the grooves are between 6 and 12mm apart: the narrower the interval, the higher the pitch. these stretches of road, each playing a different tune, can currently be found in 3 places in japan - hokkaido, wakayama and gunma - with the optimum musical speed being a depressingly slow 28mph

Here’s a glimpse of the road “in action”:

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Vagabondish editor, Mike Richard, lives in Rhode Island - a spit of land in the northeastern U.S. He is a professional web designer and travel junkie with an unhealthy addiction to backpacking, camping, hiking and seeing the world. He enjoys knit hats, small, declarative sentences and speaking in the third person.



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