Musician: Use Technology To Make NY Subway Turnstiles Sing

Should a beep be replaced by a series of notes?  (photo by Susan NYC via flickr)

An off-the-cuff idea about re-tuning subway turnstiles is--pun alert!--striking a chord in New York.

Musical legend David Byrne and LCD Sound System co-founder James Murphy sat down at Yale last month for a moderated discussion on the evolving role of the artist in the digital age, during which Murphy floated the radical notion that the beep attending a MetroCard swipe need not be shrill and grating. Not only that, Murphy suggested turnstiles at a given station could be set to sound with a range of notes to give that station a particular sound, especially at rush hour, when the swipes come as swiftly as the notes in a Beethovian crescendo.

The notion has bounced around the blogoshere, including this post that reports on whether the NY Metropolitan Transit Authority would be interested in making the underground experience more sonorous. (No.)

Meanwhile, you can read about James Murphy's turnstile plans -- and listen the Soundcheck - moderated conversation.

All the subway turnstiles in New York City…make a beep. It’s a really unpleasant sound and the one that’s right next to it is slightly out of key with it. So, it’s like “ehhh….aehhh…uehhh” Unless you get it wrong and it’s like, “No!” Then it’s the sound of your bruised hip as you hit the thing…

So I thought, I love New York and I love its aggression, and I love that it doesn’t make it easier for you to be a member of the city…But, I wanted to change the sound of going through the turnstile to a series of notes - I could do a little program. I could be like, well, the dominant note is the root, this is the fifth, this is the third, have a couple of sevenths, throw a few sixths in there just to be crazy. And during rush hour it would make arpeggiated music. And each subway station could have its own key or tonal set. For me, for a new person going to work, I think it would just be nice. It would be hard not to like that more than “shut up, idiot, you’re walking so slow!”

It would be an interesting way to have people relate to the city and I didn’t think it would be that expensive…if anybody knows anybody?