Yamaha Instrument & Motorbike Designers Swap Jobs, Create Monstrosities

The multifaceted, multinational Yamaha corporation recently embarked on an experiment that it dubbed the "A HA MAY" project, which saw designers from the organisation's musical-instrument and two-wheeled-vehicle divisions swap roles to conceive new products for each other, and the results are…

Well, they're results.

From Yamaha Motor Co, we are bestowed with two striking, rebooted percussion instrument prototypes: the two-seater Fujin marimba, and the visually impressive but surely totally impractical Raijin spherical drum kit. See how that worked out for them below (click to enlarge pictures):

In describing the Fujin design, which draws its name from the god of wind, Yamaha Motor Co's designers said: "This marimba is designed for two performers and allows them to add and multiply their energy. The seating of the performers brings to mind the image of a two-seater motorcycle and enables the performers to enjoy the thrill of unexpected swings and gaps as they play the marimba".

The Raijin kit, named for the god of thunder, boosts the apparent prioritising of style over function up a notch, surrounding the performer with an apparently-but-probably-not arbitrary arrangement of skins and cymbals, with quadruple bass pedals ready to make sure you don't miss the bottom end, regardless of how the instrument has you contorting to hold a beat.

"This design seeks to create an ideal form that will allow human beings to go beyond existing methods to express themselves," the design team explained. "The design resembles a globe and allows performers to let their imaginations run wild on an assortment of different kinds of drums. Energy erupts centered on the performer, and creates an increasingly visually dynamic world of sound."

You wouldn't know it from the video below, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

To be fair to the motorbike designers, the music crew didn't fare that much better; the career instrument-makers also offered up two designs, one for a motorbike they dubbed √ (or "Root"), and an electrically power-assisted bicycle, called 0±0 (or "Zero plus/minus Zero"), which honestly seems to be the least ambitious — and, thus, most functional — of the bunch. Take a look at the designs in action below (click to enlarge pictures).

The "Root" bike designer, Kazuki Kashiwase, said of the creation: "By taking the meters on the instrument panel off the motorcycle rider's view, the idea of the design is to enable him or her to be a part of the passing scenery. The form was created to flow from the seat to the fuel tank and was inspired by a horse motif that aims to give a sense of unity among people, nature, and the vehicle."

Fair enough, we suppose - but none of that changes the fact that, in its video, you never clearly see anyone actually riding the thing. Whether that's an implicit statement on its functionality in practice is not for us to say, but compare the ultra-mysterious "Root" video with the practical demonstration of "Zero plus/minus Zero" in its clip, and you'll see a few major differences.

Plus, throw in the extra versatility of the electric-assisted pedal bike - namely, that "the battery power can ... be taken out of the stand and the electricity generated shared with the family and used to power musical instruments and other electric appliances" — and it becomes pretty clear that you can take the designer out of the department, but you apparently cannot take the department out of the designer.

For more information on Yamaha's A HA MAY project, see the company's websites (Music // Motor Co.).