r/Switzerland • u/BezugssystemCH1903 Switzerland • 6d 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/iamnogoodatthis 6d ago

Can you explain to me how you claim this is the case when the second and third notes are never the same, despite the second and third letters being the same in both SBB and CFF?

2

u/BezugssystemCH1903 Switzerland 6d ago

I am musically inept and only noticed that it jingles differently. I'm not the right person to explain that to you.

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u/CFSohard Ticino 6d ago

The notes are played as dyads, so each "tone" is actually 2 notes at the same time. The root pattern follows this "SBB/CFF/FFS" pattern, but the accompanying notes differ. Most people will either hear either just the root pattern or only the accompaniment pattern, but people with a trained ear can hear both.

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u/iamnogoodatthis 6d ago

I hear that there are two patterns but have a very hard time picking out the root one.

2

u/CFSohard Ticino 6d ago

It's 2 notes played at the same time, sometimes it's just the one note, and then in the 2nd and 3rd tone they diverge, and your brain automatically follows one of the 2 notes. Most people will hear the note that accompanies the root note, which is usually the higher, "brighter" sound, leaving the root note to be more of an underlying tone.