The most bizarre musical instrument on earth

clipped from deputy-dog.com a few years ago in japan, members of the hokkaido industrial research institute started carving thousands of very precise grooves into nearby roads. the slightly loopy brainwave belonged to a mr. shinoda, a guy who accidentally cut a road in several places with a digger and then later drove over the damage in his car. he realised that with some planning and time to kill he could create rows of grooves which, when driven over at a certain speed, would ‘play a tune’. the results, 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. don’t expect a virtual orchestra - from what i’ve heard, it’s not exactly beautiful music, but it’s unique and it’s mental. a winning combination.