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Mile-Long Wooden Xylophone Plays Bach in Japanese Forest
- bluenose69 6y agoThis is an amazing thing to watch, and listen to. I see it's been on HN for 3 hours with no comments, so I assume it will fade from the starting screen soon. I hope not, because I think other HNers might enjoy this as much as I did.
- stubish 6y agoLovely to see an ad company put together something so wonderful.
- bombcar 6y agoIf more advertising was focused on stunts like this I’d be more favorable toward the industry.
- mikehollinger 6y agoChevy did something similar with OK Go years ago. [1] It was pretty slick. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MejbOFk7H6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MejbOFk7H6c
- smarx007 6y agoPoor car! Poor pianos!!! The Bach installation compared to this is The embodiment of harmony.
- hengheng 6y agoEach piece comments on its specific culture.
- wolfpack_mick 6y agoWhich is interesting because Morihiro Harano (who conceptualised and created the xylophone video) directed the OK Go music video for I won't let you go, partnered with Honda. Chevy was first though, if i'm not mistaken.
- pdpi 6y agoHonda’s Cog ad is something I enjoy watching for the sheer fun of it all.
- chczdc 6y agoThe Japanese blow my mind sometimes. Their attention to detail, their uncompromising attitude to everything they do.
- Razengan 6y agoSome people dislike romanticizing a nation like that, but I regularly see a kind of creativity among their general populace that I miss in other groups. One of my favorite examples of that I was admiring just now are the people on Instagram who post as if they’re cute plushie characters: https://instagram.com/momo_iro_kuma https://instagram.com/momo_iro_kuma https://instagram.com/roppi_mon https://instagram.com/roppi_mon
- jollofricepeas 6y agoThis is not unique of Japan and is true of most island nation cultures and even hill/mountain cultures as well. Read: Wealth Power & Politics by Thomas Sowell. Read: Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond. The West just tends to fetishize Japan more than the others.
- ximeng 6y agoOther island nation cultures have plushies?
- Razengan 6y agoWhat are you referring to by "this"? I didn't mean that it's unique to Japan, just that I frequently notice a refreshing -whimsy- among them that other more austere/cynical peoples might dismiss as childish etc. (e.g. the places I've usually lived in). The Instagram links just happened to be something I was browsing at the time.
- Hydraulix989 6y agoAlso: Jiro Dreams of Sushi as well as rescuing the post-Atari video game industry crash with Nintendo Entertainment System + Super Mario (a creative breath of fresh air after the likes of E.T. on the 2600)
- svarrall 6y agoWould love to see a making of for this. Would be fascinating seeing the experimentation involved
- snypher 6y agohttps://youtu.be/VD44QhKuG1U https://youtu.be/VD44QhKuG1U
- JimiofEden 6y agoThis is an absolutely beautiful thing to see
- asimpletune 6y agoI’d really like to see something similar, but with a second voicing added. Although I have no idea if syncing two balls is possible, so they’d have to build the second voice into the boards themselves.
- comboy 6y agoOr you could play a canon.
- laurieg 6y agoNow this is open to the public. You can purchase a small wooden ball and try it yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36njD4LSleA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36njD4LSleA
- StavrosK 6y agoWouldn't you need more balls for the trills?
- Plestor 6y agoSimply phenomenal....
- minikomi 6y agoThis reminds me of the Melody Roads which can be found around japan: Description: https://wow-j.com/en/Allguides/kanto/sightseeing/02256_en/ https://wow-j.com/en/Allguides/kanto/sightseeing/02256_en/ Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvzAj_4yg8w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvzAj_4yg8w
- Retr0spectrum 6y agoIs this really a mile long? Looks like much less to me, perhaps some colloquialism was mistranslated somewhere along the way? Regardless of its true length, it's still very cool.
- barlog 6y agoYep, it is 44 meters long.
- StavrosK 6y agoThat's almost a mile, isn't it.
- kennywinker 6y agoA kilometer (1000m) is 0.62 miles, so this is 0.044km aka 0.027 miles.
- StavrosK 6y agoI did say "almost".
- andrewflnr 6y agoI think to qualify as "almost" it would have to be at least, say, 0.1 miles.
- StavrosK 6y agoHow about "almost almost a mile"?
- andrewflnr 6y agoI'll allow it.
- 6y ago
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoAt first I assumed they were talking about a xylophone with mile-long bars. I almost nerd-sniped myself trying to work out the acoustic implications in my head :)
- needle0 6y agoThat this installation was conceived as an advertisement for the Sharp SH-08C, a 3G mobile phone that's long been obsoleted, discontinued and forgotten, and that the installation itself holds up nearly a decade later, kinda makes you think about the longevity of tech products (and also about the line between art and marketing)...
- Mediterraneo10 6y agoThere is a Wong Kar-Wai short film that is still watched by film buffs, even though it was made as an advertisement for 1990s-era mobile phone technology in Hong Kong.
- Optimal_Persona 6y agoBeautiful! Makes me wonder how audio was recorded - ambient mics, spaced array along the path, piezo/contact transducers?
- phamilton4 6y agoImagine walking/hiking through a forest and hearing this off in the distance. I'm not sure what I would do... Walk towards the sound or run away haha. Pretty cool, I loved the how they handled the whole notes/half notes and rolls.
- supernova87a 6y agoI have noticed that for some reason, simple melodies play a bigger part of Japanese daily interactive life, especially to do with transport and retail settings. Search for a story about how every JR station in Tokyo has its own special theme melody for when the train doors close? Also, side story, I remember there was some road in Nevada or maybe near Sacramento (?) where GM (?) sponsored a melody road with the lines cut in the pavement. The song was the Lone Ranger (William Tell). However, maybe it was just me being a stickler, but I felt it was horribly out of tune when I heard the video. I think they got the spacing of the lines wrong.
- m4rtink 6y agoThe station jingles in Japan can have quite a deep meaning in Japan - for example the Shin Imamiya Station plays a part from Dvoraks 9th symphony - "From the New World". Coming from Czech Republic we recognized the melody immediately & knew what was going on - the station is very close to the famous Shin Sekai or "New World" district of Osaka. A really nice touch. :)
- karmelapple 6y agoYou got it, here’s the road and why it sounds so rough: https://youtu.be/Ef93WmlEho0 https://youtu.be/Ef93WmlEho0
- etrautmann 6y agoAlso, another front page story now has several commenters posting about Japanese rice cookers playing twinkle twinkle
- frxx 6y agoWikipedia claims there are over 30 melody roads in Japan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_road#Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_road#Japan Here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_xvfZUqAtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_xvfZUqAtg
- spike021 6y agoIf you travel by road to Mt. Haruna / Lake Haruna in Gunma, Japan, there are safety posts along the side of the road at the summit that IIRC basically "play" "Itsy Bitsy Spider" as you drive by. I left my window open even though it was snowing so I could catch it. Pretty fun stuff.
- lmilcin 6y agoI kinda feel this could have easily be made much better without much additional effort. Correcting the geometry of the wooden pieces could ensure the ball moves at a steady pace.
- rob74 6y agoAh, another "theoretical expert" - you're of course free to try to improve upon their design, but I think what they ultimately built is the end result of a lot of effort (and probably trial and error) already. If you look closely at the video, you will notice that the pieces are slightly V-shaped to recenter the ball if if deviates from a straight line, and as long as the ball is in the center, the tempo is correct. When it goes off to the side, it will be pushed back to the middle, but will inevitably be slowed down slightly.
- lmilcin 6y agoActually, I do some control theory on a daily basis. It should be possible to choose particular shapes of the channel that will reduce oscillations. If you think about it, a channel that would not let the ball stray left or right would achieve just that. Also, since when you are only allowed to comment on HN if you have actual experience?
- fauigerzigerk 6y agoChanging the shape of the bars could be difficult without ruining the sound. Perhaps some sort of guard rail would help.
- mrob 6y agoThe guide pieces are not the same as the xylophone bars.
- lmilcin 6y agoI think there are many possible shapes and the difference is basically tuning. There are makers of wooden musical instruments a'la xylophone and they just cut it in fantastic shapes, different each time, and then tune individual parts by removing some of the material.
- timpickles 6y agoThere used to be a fence in the seaside town of Shanklin, Isle of Wight, UK which played "I do like to be beside the seaside". Sadly a storm tore it down and it's no longer there. Video from 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9R2UCsBpTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9R2UCsBpTE
- kwhitefoot 6y agoThat's beautiful, a true work of art.
- justinclift 6y agoTitle should be changed to "44 meters long" or maybe "~40 meters long". It's not even slightly close to a mile long. :/