Singing bus horns in West Sumatra

This website is an ethnomusicology goldmine! Great work from someone who seems to be doing it out of passion. I've been reading/listening through it and my favorite so far is the piece on Papuan highland Wisisi: https://www.auralarchipelago.com/auralarchipelago/wisisi

This is fantastic. The one-handed organ keyboard is a work of genius, and it all feels like very simple organic technology: sets of tuned car horns are really cheap, and the rest is just a matter of wiring.

I'm severely tempted to buy a bunch of car horn parts and build my own MIDI-controllable one - every bit of this I can either buy on Amazon or 3D print.

Sing me a song, Mr. Kalason man. Sing me a song on a bus. We'll miss all of those pure-ish tone melodies. Driving your competitors nuts.

That was an interesting read. There is a movie called RV, and in that movie there is an RV with a kalason type select-a-melody horn installed. I'm glad we don't have these distractions in our vehicles, but they would surely be a fun diversion while stuck in traffic. Can you imagine the cacophony of a congested California freeway, with each vehicle belting out their own melodies on their own kalason? I can. No thank you. But, to dream...

There is something special about backpacking more remote parts of Indonesia. I love it to the core, although its highly incompatible with having small kids for many reasons, but anytime I can cut off a week or two to have most chores covered by family and wife approves, I go for it like there is no tomorrow. Did one trip to Togian islands in Sulawesi archipelago this summer after 6 year hiatus, can't recommend it enough.

Basically if you like tropical jungle and beaches/coral diving its Indonesia as #1. If you like culture (and sensory) shock and people its India. If you love mountains its Nepal.

There is way more out there of course, often a mix of above (ie India has all of it in droves and much more, but its a proper continent size-wise). I always come back physically tired but mentally permanently enriched and a slightly different person, this style is simply so intense compared to a more casual spending of holidays.

But compatible with small kids it isn't... even though I met few families with small kids it seemed properly selfish from parents - no real doctor or even medicine for 200km/overnight ferry around, kids struggling in equatorial humid jungle without AC, although it must be a very forming experience for them too.

The modern evolution of this lives long on the bus around Indonesia, in the form of telolet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om_Telolet_Om

In Sri Lanka, almost every bus has some kind of melody built into it. They might be shorter, but some have various melodies.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sri+lankan+bus+...

If you find this music interesting, check out the Frozen Brass compilations.

This one is of mostly Southeast Asia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtmbrcQNWCc

The mess of pipes, the minibar, ...

That one vehicle has more personality and charm than every vehicle and building in my immediate vicinity put together.

This website is one of the most interesting pages I read in the last months.

Thanks for sharing!

My new dream job is tukang kalason

was disappointed there was no bus. and he only knows one song and it's really long.