Train your ears to the sound of birds

Is it a bird? Is it a train?

This is about Birds of Tokyo. But not the Australian indie band. Nor actual birds in Tokyo.

If you’ve ever been to this bustling metropolis, you likely have visited a train station. Ostensibly in preparation to either board or alight from a train.

Stay with me. While many people will tell you about the wonders of the Japanese railway systems and how everywhere should adopt the high speed rail, this post does not deal with the actual trains. This other post does:

Trains, pains, and Shinkansen

Instead, I want to discuss aspects of Tokyo train stations that I only noticed on a much later visit. This aspect is the sound landscape.

Train Sounds

At first, I thought there were a surprising number of birds living in the lofts of our local station. Of course, I would look up to try and spot the glimmers of wildlife among the otherwise entirely sealed human biomes. I sometimes caught glimpses of the fluttering wings or the changing of shadows, or so I thought.

Over the course of multiple minutes-long waits at the platform, it became clear that I was mistaken. The chirps occurred in a remarkably regular pattern that took me too long to realise they were actually sound engineered. These wildlife-free stations were reinforced by little anti-bird spikes on each of the light fixtures and perch positions.

Photo by Jackie Alexander on Unsplash

So why artificially pump in avian acoustics?

Perhaps it was to trick gullible visitors into believing in the co-existence of a bird sanctuary and massive public transportation. Or maybe it was a feeble attempt at attracting tourists to listen to near imperceptible bird calls? Neither of these explanations were entirely satisfactory, but no one seemed to have a better answer.

Chirp seeking

The explanation for this was gnawing at my mind. No one I spoke to had a better reason for this, often offering up stories like “it’s in your head” or “maybe there’s a secret cabal of bird lovers running Tokyo trains”. The actual answer was both more interesting in its implementation and less interesting in how I found out about it.

Eventually the hunt ended in a Google search of “Why are there bird sounds on trains?” Google knew that I was in Tokyo through their stalking (location mapping) and led me to the truth.

It turns out that this was a design choice made to assist the visually impaired. The idea is that bird chirps correspond to supporting blind train riders to more easily find exits and ticket gates. The language of birds was chosen to not add to the (let’s be honest) overwhelming scale and audio architecture of most Tokyo stations.

Instead, different bird calls are used to indicate different signals. Like a secret message, the calls can show whether escalators are going up or down, depending on peak hour times. The sounds were specifically made to not require another verbal message to the already near non-stop verbal information on which trains are going where on which platform. So just like in Disney films, the birds are able to guide people to where they need to be.

Beyond the birds

The entire Tokyo rail network doesn’t operate through bird noises alone. Each has further supposed psychological sound “tricks” to ensure that the throngs of commuters follow an orderly manner during the busy period (i.e., all operational hours). Many of these tricks follow the same concept as the bird song and are mostly camouflaged.

Along these lines, the train melody is a noticeable member of this choice architecture. Something which I had failed to notice in prior train rides, each station has a short and unique melody that signals that trains are about to depart.

This was not always the case.

In most of the 1980s, the departure sound was a classic buzzer sound. This was seen as more than a little stress-inducing, but a great alarm for those in a rush. Then in 1989, JR East (a major line operator) thought that maybe starting out everyone’s day with a series of alarms was not the best way forward.

To that end, they commissioned Yamaha (the music instrument/motorcycle company) to compose what are known as the “hassha merodiis”. These are a series of 7-second tunes, which are calibrated to both inform about departures and calm passengers. Despite this seemingly untenable contradiction, research was found that a short melody was best for reducing stress and rush accidents. A study even found that the switch to hassha merodiis reduced these accidents by 25 percent.

An unexpected upside of such a soundscape has been the cult following. Composer Minoru Mukaiya, has created 170 of these tunes. With this train track record, he became a local legend, regularly sells out concerts, and is banned from Ginza Station for attracting too much commotion when performing.

Further sound trickery has been involved in combatting the youth. Specifically, the Japanese rail system has decided that teenage loitering around major stations is to be minimised. To ensure success in warding off the young, ultrasonic emitters have been put into place around many exits around Tokyo’s bigger stations. Set at a high-pitched frequency of 17 kilohertz the sound can only be heard by those with undamaged hearing (normally those under the age of 25). Alas, the last time I was in Tokyo Station I was unable to notice the debilitating noise that kept the young clear of the exits.

Entering the nest

Armed with this knowledge, I still don’t think it’s a good idea to try to navigate your local Tokyo station with your eyes shut. Among the everyday chaos of boarding a train, trying to parse out bird calls is one task too many. For me, the Tokyo metro is still a place I need sight for. Instead, I have newfound respect for the many hidden aspects of well-researched and non-visual designs that are made to help vision-impaired train goers.

In resolving the bird mystery and exploring the soundscape of these underground lands, I gained a much fuller appreciation of Japanese stations. They make squeezing onto a highly-over-capacity train slightly easier to bear. It must be why composer Mukaiya-san is such a fan favourite. He makes everyone’s unpleasant daily chore that little bit more pleasant. Isn’t that what we all aspire to do?