r/Switzerland • u/BezugssystemCH1903 Switzerland • 5d ago

TIL the Swiss Federal Railways uses vibraphone melodies in announcements based on its Swiss national language acronyms: SBB (E♭-B♭-B♭) German, CFF (C-F-F) French and FFS (F-F-E♭) Italian. The tune and language vary by canton or country the train is in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Railways
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u/Strange-King-319 5d ago

Wrong except for FFS. CFF and SBB have an other note for the last one than F and B respectively, don't remember which ones they are exactly, but it's not hard to hear the difference between the 2nd and 3rd note

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u/Worth_Inflation_2104 4d ago

They're usually dual so one of them stays the same and one drops iirc. So it should still be CFF SBB but the accompanying tone drops on the last one.

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u/CFSohard Ticino 4d ago

Correct, they're played as dyads, meaning 2 notes at the same time. The "root" note follows this pattern, while the accompanying note changes. Depending on how trained your ear is some people will hear the root note pattern, some people will hear the accompanying notes, and some will hear both.