Birbla

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  • Hacker News
  • was disappointed there was no bus. and he only knows one song and it's really long.
    by fsckboy
  • There are recordings of other songs presented at the top of the article.
    by v9v
  • My new dream job is tukang kalason
    by kepeko
  • This website is one of the most interesting pages I read in the last months.

    Thanks for sharing!

    by NoiseBert69
  • 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.

    by chmod775
  • 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

    by c6400sc
  • 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+...

    by notracks
  • 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

    by wejick
  • 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.

    by kakacik
  • 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...

    by imchillyb
  • 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.

    by lambdaone
  • These are not electrically powered horns. Surely you can imitate them though.
    by yostrovs
  • 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
    by pierrec