Musical Roads – Melodies on the go

Construction workers having fun? Engineers taking their jobs to the streets? Musicians experimenting with asphalt? City planners caring for their drivers? Well, yes, all of the above. We’re talking about “Musical Roads” a phenomena popping up in various countries around the world. Bringing music to the mundane task of driving… ?

What on Earth are you talking about?

Well in the last twenty-five years, people have been building musical roads. “A musical road is a road, or part of a road, which when driven over causes a tactile vibration and audible rumbling transmitted through the wheels into the car body in the form of a musical tune.” (Wikipedia). Sounds simple enough… and very groovy, literally. The different notes are created by making small grooves in the asphalt and the note changes according to the width of these grooves, between 5 to 10 cm wide. If a car drives at a constant speed, closer-spaced grooves increase the pitch and wider-spaced grooves lower the pitch. Here is a closeup photo of a small section of a musical road:

Where and when did this start?

The Musical Road was invented in Denmark in 1995 by two artists, Steen Krarup Jensen and Jakob Freud-Magnus. They called this “road instrument” an Asphaltophone and made it by laying down a series of raised pavement markers, similar to Botts’ dots, spaced out at the right intervals to make an arpeggio in the key of F Major play when driven over them. See below for a visual demonstration:

Now they are known to exist in nearly a dozen countries other countries including China, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, the USA, San Marino, Taiwan and the Ukraine.

Lancaster, California:

Netherlands:

How do they produce different notes?

Marshal Chasin, a professional audiologist, developed a formula for measuring the appropriate width between road grooves to attain every note, from middle C (262 Hz) to an octave above (524 Hz), including all sharps:

f = v/wavelength

Where f is frequency (262 Hz or 262/second) and v is the rate that the car passes by each groove (100 km/h). Here is a chart of his results using this formula, with the Groove Width in inches (click to enlarge):

Aren’t they a distraction to drivers?

On the contrary, actually! These musical roads are strategically placed in sections of road that are straight and in areas where drivers are known to doze off, become inattentive or to speed. The music, which is heard quite loudly, alerts the driver and reminds them to pay attention to the road. Some of them even require a certain steady and moderate speed, such as 45 miles per hour, in order to get the most accurate notes of the melody. This has a double function as it helps to prevent drivers from speeding in that section of road.

A great example of this is in New Mexico when the Department of Transportation and the National Geographic Channel installed a “Musical Highway” in 2014. It was installed to remind drivers to slow down and respect the speed limit in a stretch of road that is usually used by old automobile collectors to test their cars’ speed capabilities. Check out this video for more details:

Where can we go from here?

Well, musical roads are now commercialised and this could turn into a lucrative marketing technique in the near future for some top brands. Honda made the first commercial featuring a musical road in 2009 where the road played an excerpt of the William Tell Overture. A musical road is never quite accurate when it comes to pitch and some say that the Honda team did a horrible job and that the melody was completely out of tune, even unrecognisable. Judge for yourself in the result below:

Conclusion

Next time you’re travelling in any of these countries and you have access to a car give them a test drive. Hopefully one day every country will adopt this musical safety mechanism on their roads and the number of accidents due to fatigue will decrease. Remember to always drive sober and only when well rested. Bon voyage!

Joe has been singing since he can remember and started playing guitar when he was 10. He's been using it as a songwriting tool ever since. He is passionate about melody and harmony and admires musicians who create these in unique ways. Check out his alternative / indie projects Best of Feelings and Zef Raček.

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