xylophone

I was fortunated to be part of creating long wooden xylophone for an advertisement of mobilephone by docomo (Japanese mobilephone company). In the winter of 2010, the project started with a ambitious sketch, probally it was drawn by Morihiro Harano. It described a music instrument, long wooden xylophone. The idea was like playing music with a ball rolling on wooden marble run rail. The AD agency requested production of this 'forest xylophone' in only 2-3 monthes. Kenjio Matsuo(Invisible Designs Lab.) formed a R&D team consisted of sound designers, carpenters and University studends. I helped initial test of main woodden rail system and later was assigned to creation of 'special rail system' such as funnel, see-saw, tunnel, jumper, etc. We as a student team(Takeshi Usami, Nobu Furuta, Hiroshi Matoba) developed ideas and created prototypes. Most of ideas are excluded before final production except 'Tremolo' that appears in the middle of the video. We also helped on-site installation and xylophone adjustment.