I saw on the news recently a clip of a stairs that had a musical improvement. Each step became a key of a keyboard - the music kind, not computer kind - and it supposedly encouraged people to use the stairs, exercise, and make music at the same time.
Of course, this means their definition of music is a chromatic scale. And nothing more. After all, how can you create a chord by yourself when you only have two feet. Or maybe we could ask strangers to help us ask music. (Hey mister, can you just jump on that C note for me. I want to hear a chord.)
It's a rather novel idea of course, and its idea is to be encouraged and taken notice of, (the idea btw is to exercise more and if you use the escalator, stand on the left. I think), but not very practical.
Can you imagine the stairs of Raffles Place being turned into a keyboard? During morning or evening rush hour, the sheer volume and dis-chords will make phantom of the opera sound like a sonata.
So we should just scrap the idea, seriously. Why not adapt the idea to something more practical, like placing such 'musical stairs' in concert halls or theatres. It would definitely make tuning much easier. Just tap on the step, or throw a tuba or a drum stick at the step, and the whole band can tune.
Like all things, there is a drawback however. If your band or performer takes a long time to tune, you probably need to buy a box of drum sticks, or hire a tap dancer.
But wouldn't such an idea make more sense? And if you really want people to exercise? Just render the escalator immobile, or shut it down.
Then people lan lan must walk. :)
