Tuesday, February 25, 2014

LCD Soundsystem are playing in my transit system

James Murphy wants to bring a bit of music to city life. Specifically, New York City, and more specifically, he wants to upgrade the beep of subway gates into something more edifying:

What i propose to do is to create a series of 3 to 5 note sequences, all unique, one for each station in the subway system. These sequences will be part of an intersecting larger piece of music, which would run from station to station, and cross one another as, say, the 4, 5, 6 line (one musical piece) intersects with the L, N, R, Q and W (another musical piece) at Union Square. At each turnstile in Union Square, as you tap your new tap and ride card, a pleasant bell tone will sound, in one of a set of possible notes, all related to that station's note sequence. The effect would be that at the busiest times, like rush hour, what was once cacophony would now be music.
It won't stop the subway being a place of eye-darting fear and urine stenches, but it might just help.

On the other hand, you might arrive at your destination unable to get the subway music out of your head. That could be worse.


No comments:

Post a Comment

As a general rule, posts will only be deleted if they reek of spam.