Musicartography

August 19, 2009 2:01 PM

A piano has 88 keys; Ohio has 88 counties.Cartographer Andy Woodruff noticed this fact while driving through Ohio to complete his Counties Visited Map, and decided, despite knowing nothing about music, to make a map based on this coincidence.
posted by yiftach (29 comments total)

I am amused.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:07 PM on August 19

A+
posted by ericost at 2:09 PM on August 19

Now, THIS is what the internets are for.
posted by jadayne at 2:09 PM on August 19

That was so wonderful!
posted by bluefly at 2:19 PM on August 19

Ha! That's great.
posted by cortex at 2:23 PM on August 19

YAY MAPS!

/slinks back out
posted by desjardins at 2:23 PM on August 19

I have to say the song for traveling from Gallipolis to Cincinnati accurately captures the soul-crushing distress of driving in Southern Ohio. Or anywhere else in Ohio, for that matter.

Seriously, though, this is pretty sweet.
posted by Copronymus at 2:24 PM on August 19

This should be applied to Survivor so the contestants can be noted off the island.
posted by ...possums at 2:26 PM on August 19

Beethoven's Fifth sounds like the maestro has decomposed a little bit.
posted by yhbc at 2:28 PM on August 19 [4 favorites has favorites]

Go Internet Go! Loved it.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 2:29 PM on August 19

:D
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:29 PM on August 19

That is pretty great.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:29 PM on August 19

And with that version of The Entertainer, now is the time to introduce the USians of MeFi to the godlike genius that was Les Dawson.
posted by i_cola at 2:38 PM on August 19

Yeah. That's really really cool.
posted by eyeballkid at 2:50 PM on August 19

Really awesome. And a good way to drive the dog nuts.
posted by functionequalsform at 2:58 PM on August 19

Four of them sound kind of dead. But you could probably still make a song out of that.
posted by Nick Verstayne at 2:59 PM on August 19

Totally awesome. Thank you for this post.
posted by lazaruslong at 3:05 PM on August 19

The black keys on the piano are a different color, and a different type of note. All the counties turn white when you play any note. It would have been even cooler if the sharps and flats flashed black.

Still, as it is, very impressive.
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 3:11 PM on August 19

Cool. If you hurry, you can get more than one assigned data set playing at once.
posted by mediareport at 3:13 PM on August 19

Now when I go to a wedding this weekend I'll impress/scare my family with "There is a song hidden in OHIO"
posted by graventy at 3:14 PM on August 19

Stuff like this makes me unreasonably happy. Thank you, internets. You have served your purpose.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 3:41 PM on August 19

Favorite combinations:

-- Downward progression from "Cincinatti" to "Dayton" to "Toledo" (set to "Pop2004")
-- "No Farms97," "Vacant," and "Renter Occ" (set to "Pop2004")
--- Playing "The Entertainer" anywhere

this is pretty sweet --- and you get to play along!
posted by puckish at 3:46 PM on August 19

In my third-grade Ohio History class, they pointed this correspondence out to us. Given that I remember this, twenty or thirty years later, I'd say it was very effective.
posted by box at 4:15 PM on August 19

Hah, when my car broke down in Newark, I yelled "F!!!!"

Little did I know I was right!
posted by not_on_display at 4:58 PM on August 19

Probably the best thing ever done with Ohio.
I keed, I keed.
posted by pointless_incessant_barking at 5:27 PM on August 19

[this is good]
posted by sciurus at 5:29 PM on August 19

The scale is messed up if you assign notes by "Med Age F" and then play the data "Med Age F" - you should hear all 88 notes from lowest to highest, but it goes backward for three notes in a row twice as it plays.
posted by scrowdid at 6:24 PM on August 19

gotta love maps like this. if only his indiemaps project was live, it'd be even better.
posted by pappy at 6:48 PM on August 19

agreed.
posted by milestogo at 8:08 PM on August 19