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Yamanot.es: A music box of train station melodies from the JR Yamanote Line

337 points| zdw | 6 months ago |yamanot.es

101 comments

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[+] tkgally|6 months ago|reply
A couple of months ago, riding the subway through Ginza Station for the first time in a while, I noticed that the door-closing melody was from the 1949 song Ginza Kankan Musume [1, 2]. I’m normally not very familiar with Japanese pop music, but I happen to have the song on a playlist I listen to together with my five-year-old grandson. It brought a smile to my face, as it’s a cheerful, very slightly risqué song from the early postwar period, when Japanese popular culture was enjoying renewed freedom. It was fun to hear it in a subway station in 2025.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYpdBcso3A

[2] https://g.co/gemini/share/d584c36b99ab

[+] ipnon|6 months ago|reply
I don't know how to describe this, but Japanese enjoy putting a little bit of joy into every thing, like Ronald McDonald, but real.
[+] kelnos|6 months ago|reply
I was just in Japan a few months ago. It was my fourth visit, but the first for my partner, who found the different departure melodies notable and a really nice, cute, joyful thing. We made a point to listen to them whenever we were taking a train somewhere (which was of course very often, multiple times per day). In a way it feels like a funny thing to have near top-of-mind when it comes to memories of a trip that was packed with so many fun activities.

Noticed the Okachimachi and Uguisudani (and several other) melodies are the same... is that correct, or is that a mistake on the site? I imagine it's hard to have a unique melody for every single station, so I expect there are some repeats throughout the transit system, but those two stations are so close together, it's a surprise that they'd be the same.

[+] kmorg|6 months ago|reply
This year they started the process of replacing all of the melodies with the same standardized one. This site has the older melodies.
[+] thomashop|6 months ago|reply
I'm also a fan of the Yamanote Line.

I made a psychedelic AI audio-visual collage inspired by it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwUSzUvShqcaa

I made field recordings during my last stay in Tokyo. From those, I made a song for each station of the Yamanote line, using the Jingle in the prompt. The visuals were made similarly.

Used mainly Suno, Udio, Runway and Ableton Live.

[+] titanomachy|6 months ago|reply
This inspired me to go make some music. Awesome set! I like the beat and bass line on “tabata”.
[+] seasongs|6 months ago|reply
Absolute bangers for 2 and half hours straight
[+] hn111|6 months ago|reply
Love it! Thanks for sharing
[+] ekusiadadus|6 months ago|reply
I listen to them every day.

By the way, Ikebukuro’s melody isn’t this one anymore. Bic Camera, an electronics retailer, acquired Seibu, and now their song is played instead. https://youtu.be/9Emi-ZAnnlc?si=G8iazo945capvT5T&t=221

It’s fun, isn’t it?

[+] NalNezumi|6 months ago|reply
Thia give me PTSD flashback. My first job out of high school was bic camera. Those melodies are fun at station because they only play it when train is coming, but full blasting it 24/7 (including rest room) makes your brain go numb.

I go in to a trance state of corporate drone mode with a 営業スマイル(sales smile) and bendy-hip when I hear that tune

[+] rootnod3|6 months ago|reply
Seibu had nothing to do with it. BicCamera started in Ikebukuro and was influential in building up the area. The jingle change is a campaign as BicCamera is doing a cooperation with the ward to build it out more. See [1]

[1] https://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1573062.html

[+] Philip-J-Fry|6 months ago|reply
Why can't train operators in other countries take inspiration from things like this?

It takes very little effort to implement. You could hold melody competitions for local communities. It is a nice thing which sparks joy and it's also something that people would want to travel and experience. You could hold a competition with local schools every year to develop a little 5 second melody.

I just think of this from a UK point-of-view. It's like we completely forget what makes life interesting and everything has to be boring and mundane.

[+] notpushkin|6 months ago|reply
Nit: if you scroll down a lot, the stations at the top disappear (and get appended at the bottom, which makes sense – it’s a circular line after all!), but the space remains, so when you scroll back there’s a ton of empty space. Maybe remove that empty space after the scrolling has stopped? (Would be nice if you could scroll backwards, too!)

And just to throw in a wild idea, it might be nice if the UI was a variation of the in-train display interface: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Series-E131-500_Insi...

Naturally, it’s not as clean and sleek, but incorporating some elements of it might make this site look more authentic. Maybe something like this? https://files.catbox.moe/8cpp76.png

[+] kmorg|6 months ago|reply
Unfortunately JR East has phasing out the custom melodies and have been standardizing the Yamanote line to always play the same tune. They are saying labor shortages are the reason since they need to press a physical button in the station in order to play the melody.
[+] cbhl|6 months ago|reply
Huh.

https://kaisercougarconnection.com/2784/news/musical-trains-...

My impression is that all of the Yamanote line stations are above ground -- I'd have expected it to be possible to have "one button plays the right sound at each station" if you used a standard phone's GPS to figure out which station you were at.

[+] numpad0|6 months ago|reply
These songs were composed by whoever available at equipment manufacturers, and copyright statuses were a bit of a mess. Now that the songs had become no small part of their branding and JRE would want to use them as they please, they're vertically integrating the process.
[+] jrockway|6 months ago|reply
I think it's pretty obvious that the goal is to get rid of the conductor position entirely. 50% less employees per train. Someone who sits at a desk all day definitely gets promoted for that one.
[+] bapak|6 months ago|reply
Huh? What does that even mean? The train already announces the train station name, so why does it need a specific button for the specific jingle? Does not sound right.
[+] phantomathkg|6 months ago|reply
What interesting is, the implementation is completely simple multi pages HTML5/CSS/Vanilla JavaScript. No framework. And it just, works.
[+] searls|6 months ago|reply
Does it? On iPadOS 26 and even with Silent Mode disabled I still can't hear anything.
[+] 0_____0|6 months ago|reply
Why...would this ever need a framework?

I haven't done any website design since the early 2010s, what would a webdev even pull from the modern frameworks to achieve what this site is doing?

[+] agos|6 months ago|reply
it's really really buggy at least on Safari - text overlapping, spaces changing, etc. not exactly a poster child!
[+] presentation|6 months ago|reply
Other lines have some bangers too - used to live in Koenji and Asagaya, love those.

https://youtu.be/wpw1MWH0AZI?si=ELfOL6QdgYCxHRyU

https://youtu.be/4qFHVCMUrto?si=daYuWZWK_aQizbha

[+] aa-jv|6 months ago|reply
Lived in Asagaya for a year .. this sure brought back memories. I'd often walk to Koenji for the nightlife .. what a wonderful neighborhood. I remember the beautiful moments in summer when the school jingle played out over the region - that was another example of Japanese appreciation for aesthetics that I've carried with me all my life.

Sad to see the recent development of Asagaya, though. Some classic old Japanese dwellings, now gone ..

[+] kitallis|6 months ago|reply
I made a similar flutter app (to test our main product) that plays the in-train announcement instead of the station melody.

https://github.com/tramlinehq/ueno – it's downloadable from both app stores.

[+] cedws|6 months ago|reply
Leaving Japan next week after living in Tokyo for 6 months. This website is going to hit different very soon.

ドアに注意下さい

[+] fransje26|6 months ago|reply
The best of luck with this next upcoming chapter of your life!
[+] ainiriand|6 months ago|reply
It is also very cool the infinite scroll of all the stations as this is the circular line. Top class!
[+] Zee2|6 months ago|reply
Why don't I remember the Ueno station being an electronic office telephone ringtone...
[+] modeless|6 months ago|reply
Yeah I'm not sure about some of these. Some are duplicates too, is that accurate?
[+] ekianjo|6 months ago|reply
When you get this, I believe the actual song is missing
[+] torcete|6 months ago|reply
I can imagine how much this can boost the nostalgia factor if you used to live by a certain area and conmute from/to there everyday.

Then you move somewhere else in the world and one day you hear the same tune you used to hear twice a day.

[+] bluecoconut|6 months ago|reply
The first time I got off at and heard Komagome's tune I mistakenly thought it was some halloween special because it was late October at the time, and the song felt so distinct and unique.
[+] ajb|6 months ago|reply
Ebisu has the "Harry Lime" theme from "The Third Man"? Wasn't expecting to recognise any... I wonder who was a fan of that film.
[+] makeitdouble|6 months ago|reply
Yes, it's that song.

The station is named after a beer company that operates there, and they used their beer CM song for the station chime as well.