Japanese Train Station Melodies

Above, passengers boarding the JR Yamanote Line at Shinjuku Station. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

One of the things that is enjoyable (at least I find it so) while traveling around Japan: the melodies played at Japanese train stations.

According to Japan Info:

If you’ve ever been to the cities of Tokyo and Osaka, you’ll notice the melody being played when trains are about to arrive and depart from stations. They are called train departure melodies or “hassha merodii” in Japanese. These jingles that whisk commuters on their way were actually made by Japanese composer Minoru Mukaiya, who has created almost 200 train jingles in his lifetime. 

Aside from Tokyo and Osaka, there are other cities around the world that use train melodies such as Budapest in Hungary and Seoul in Korea. First introduced by French classical pianist Charles-Valentin Alkan, these melodies or jingles are known to provide a feeling of relief when trains are departing and alertness when arriving. In 1971, they were introduced to Japan; and Keihan Electric Railway was the first Japanese railway company to use such train melodies. 

Bells were first used to mark the departure and arrival of trains. It didn’t sound calming and relaxing, thus certain criteria were used in creating the tunes. Later on, local train managers were able to customize the alarms into melodic ones. It created a positive reaction among passengers and quickly became popular, as passengers felt unhurried before disembarking. Most train melodies are related to Japanese history and are seven-seconds long.

Here are some examples:

And you can even buy some! Here's some you can buy of Tokyo's JR Yamanote Line:




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