alt Hacker NewsI gave every train in New York an instrument
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I love jazz but it's kind of funny how much this actually sounds like a really experimental jazz recording.
But then, jazz is sometimes spoken of as expressing the rhythms, sounds, and emotions of the modern city.
Interesting and amazing presentation.
I also liked that it didn't explicitly say how it decides when to play a note.
All the subway routes are normalized to 15 seconds long from beginning to end. The app then plays all 15 second routes together, playing the instrument assigned to the route when there's a train there.
Neat commentary on the instruments that were assigned to the route when you mouse over it.
Can someone explain what triggers a note? I don't understand from the explanation on the site. Is it whenever a train on the line crosses a predetermined geo-location?
What do the technical details look like behind this to get the data?
Sometimes the internet really delivers. This is one of those times. What a cool idea and brilliant execution.
The trombones (A, C, and E) are kind of farty. This is not how I remember "Take the A train". Too much realism.
Wow! I really like this! I have been practicing with sounds in a similar context: I have made the GitHub contribution graph as an space visualization and a music generated based on the graph [1]
Very neat. This is an example of digital art that I’d love to see exist in physical form somehow. I suppose it could get rather noisy at a museum but I love the intersection of mass transit & music.
I’d love to see this as an art installation in a subway station, please consider chatting with MTA Arts & Design, maybe they could hook you up with the right people to make this a fixture somewhere: https://www.mta.info/agency/arts-design
Neat. I wish I could select just a couple lines at once though. I feel like the 1/2/3 plus one of the other lines would make something more appealing.
Switch between the Map and Bars view for a fun time!
https://youtu.be/ahgcD1xjRiQ?si=RrCoboXMQ_yw60k5
Reminds me of SnakeJazz
Sad, the audio is always muted for me (Windows 10, Chrome 147.0.7727.56)
(the mute control in the lower right is always enabled)
Been listening to this for the past hour an a half. It's so soothing. Marvelous work, thank you.
Un/mute button throws a fetch error in Safari, fails to toggle audio.
I love the little descriptions that come up for each line (click on the map and it turns into a horizontal "sheet music" score.
Hey, this is amazing. I've been building another musical toy that I'm terming Euclidean Pulses, but I haven't been able to find a good library for making sounds. What did you use?
First beats I heard from it reminded me of Transport Tycoon Deluxe. What a legend of an experience, thank you!
That's one of the coolest thing I've even seen. A bit chaotic like NY!
How is the bar-to-map transition done? With what framework or calculated manually
It's interesting that a lot people like this but dislike AI-generated music. The music itself here is completely random to us, yet I can't see how AI-generated music can be worse than random.
The idea is novel/fun/cool, but the notes ARE random as far as we can tell. So if you're against AI music, you just like the idea but don't care about the music or... something else I can't imagine.
I think we can all come up with a bunch of original "hey, if we turn this random pattern of X into music, it would be interesting". But I don't see the point of actually doing it since the result is obviously going to be random uninteresting notes. If I convert my keypresses on my keyboard over the past year or whether my dog licks itself or barks or runs into music, it would still be random crap. The idea of the article is the only thing that made me go "huh" for a few moments. Clicking around and seeing the execution and hearing the music was definitely "meh".
Enlighten me, please.
The sound doesn't work for me, but I love the description of the G. It does have a cult following: and just like a cult you're tricked into loving it despite its many flaws, like the one hour wait at night or sprinting to the middle of the platform.
the trombone fartiness comment got me. now i'm wondering if the 7 line would sound better as a slide whistle, you know, for the soul of queens.
classic, crowdsource it to other cities !!
Love it
So cool!
you cooked
lovely
If I could offer one usability suggestion: darken the text displayed at the bottom when a specific route is selected. Currently it's much too light for the white background. I couldn't tell you the exact contrast ratio but I'm certain it doesn't meet accessibility guidelines.
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Hello from Japan! I discovered TrainJazz this morning and enjoyed it with my morning coffee — the idea of turning subway movements into music is quietly beautiful.
I would love to see a Japanese version someday. Tokyo’s train network is one of the most complex in the world, and I imagine the music it would make would be extraordinary. Thank you for creating something so thoughtful.