Nokia Ringtone Origin

[Desmond Hutchins]

The Nokia tune is a phrase from a composition for solo guitar, Gran Vals, composed in 1902 by the Spanish classical guitarist and composer Francisco Trrega.[1] It has been associated with Finnish corporation Nokia since the 1990s, becoming the first identifiable musical ringtone on a mobile phone; Nokia selected an excerpt to be used as its default ringtone.[2]

The Nokia tune first appeared on the Nokia 2010 released in 1994, under the name ringtone Type 5, showing that it was just one of the normal ringtones. The tune's original name varied in the ringtone list, listed as Type 13 on some phones, or Type 8 on others. In December 1997 with the introduction of the Nokia 6110, ringtones were each given a specific name, and the tune received the name "Grande valse". Some later Nokia phones (e.g. some 3310s) still used Type 7 as the name of the Nokia tune.[6] In 1998, "Grande valse" was renamed to "Nokia tune" and effectively became Nokia's flagship ringtone.

The Nokia tune has been updated several times, either to take advantage of advancing technology or to reflect musical trends at the time. The first polyphonic MIDI version of the Nokia tune, created by composer Ian Livingstone[7] (often mistaken as being Thomas Dolby's work),[8] was introduced in 2001 with the release of two South Korea-exclusive devices, the Nokia 8877 and the Nokia 8887. The Nokia 3510, released in 2002, was the first globally released phone to include this version, using Beatnik's miniBAE technology. The Nokia 9500 Communicator in 2004 introduced a realtone recorded piano version. A guitar-based version was introduced with the Nokia N78 in 2008, reflecting the popularity of nu-folk at the time.[3]

The Nokia N9 in late 2011 introduced a new version, which was created by in-house composer Henry Daw. This version uses a marimba for its melody, and was intended to be genre-neutral.[9] The same year, a contest titled Nokia Tune Remake was held on the crowdsourcing website Audiodraft.[10] The winning entry was a dubstep version, which was shipped on many Nokia phones from 2012 to 2013 alongside the regular Nokia tune. Another updated version of the Nokia tune was introduced in 2013, built on the same principles as the 2011 version. In 2018, a new version was introduced on HMD Global's Nokia 1 and 7 Plus, and remains in use. This was also created by Henry Daw; it was intended to be an evolution of the 2013 version while retaining similar instrumentation.[11]

Other versions have been produced for specific models. These include a slow piano version for the Nokia 8800 by Ryuichi Sakamoto,[12] and a slow guitar version for the Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition by Brian Eno.[13]

In December 1999, Jimmy Cauty, formerly of The KLF, and Guy Pratt released the mobile telephone-themed novelty-pop record "I Wanna 1-2-1 With You" under the name Solid Gold Chartbusters which heavily samples the theme.[14] It was released as competition for the UK Christmas number one single but only got to number 62.[15] The release of this song prevented the Super Furry Animals from releasing their song "Wherever I Lay My Phone (That's My Home)" from the album Guerrilla as a single, on the grounds that it was also based on a mobile phone theme.[16][17]

The Indonesian rock band The Changcuters included the segment of the Nokia tune on their song "Parampampam". The song was included on their 2011 album Tugas Akhir and was also featured on the Nokia X2-01 for the Indonesian market.[22]

The mass usage of cell phones changed many things, so new companies emerged, and the old ones became widely popular. Many logos and slogans became recognizable, shaping the world as we know it today. The importance of marketing became most significant, and the biggest cell phone producers aimed to create valuable and lifelong assets. One of the most successful examples is the Nokia tune, a sound known by almost anyone.

The melody appeared for only 3 seconds, and one year later, the company decided to use it as their trademark sound and include it in all of their models. Nokia 2110, released in 1994, was the first model that had the tune among the other ringtones.

In the following models, the name of the melody varied, and in 1997 the tune was given the name Grande Valse. In 1999, the name Nokia Tune was introduced, and the short theme became the Nokia authentic ringtone.

The original tune originates from 1902 composition. It was composed by the Spanish guitarist Francisco Tarrega, who is considered to be one of the greatest guitar players of all times. Born on 21st November 1852 in Villareal, Francisco became the founder of the 20th-century classic guitar style.

Alexander Graham Bell's first useful ringer was ironically a bell that was struck by a solenoid controlled hammer. Fast forward to the iPhone's original "marimba" ringtone, an audio file of a wooden key struck by a mallet. Essentially, the same factors are at play with both ringtones. Both were developed within the limitations of the technology of the time they were presented. Human factors, and the ability of the brain to translate the ringtone as an alert, also played a huge part in the choice.

It was early 2005 and Steve Jobs already had a bad taste in his mouth from the experience he had with Motorola and the partnership that created the Rokr E790 'candy bar' cell phone. This was the first cell phone that included iTunes and the ability to play Apple's copy protected, AAC format audio files. It was a huge human interface disaster that helped fuel Steve to create the iPhone. It also cemented the idea that Apple had to retain 100% control over the hardware and software of any future Apple product.

In 2005, the most popular ringtone in the world was an obscure 1902 guitar riff, the classic Nokia ring tone. Millions of cell phones, up to 1.8 billion times per day, echoed the monophonic and polyphonic version as the default ring tone. Although adequate as a call alert, it was far from ideal, and Steve had a particular dislike for the ringtone. When Apple began the development of what became the iPhone, it was clear that they would use high fidelity audio files and not simple low quality beeps and MIDI ring tones for a lot of reasons. There were cell phones that could play audio files as ringtones, but the process was cumbersome and fraught with challenges. In 2005, the ringtone business was a billion dollar industry with the cell companies as the primary gatekeepers. In the early years, ringtones could cost up to $5 per tone. But the ringtone business was never a focus of Apple when creating the iPhone. They had far more lucrative revenue models in the works.

Steve originally wanted to allow for iPhone users to create their own ringtones from iTunes music files. This would mean that politically, Steve needed to fight a two front battle with the Record Labels on one side and the cell companies on the other. There was not enough time for these battles to be won and still make the iPhone delivery date. The RIAA was also working hard to be the clearing house of ringtone revenue and pushed for the US Patent and Trademark office to issue a ruling about the legal status of a ringtone. Was it a derivative work, a performance, or otherwise?

All of these issues forced Steve to not include custom ringtones in the first iPhone/iOS release, aside from Steve's aesthetic of purity, which was quite opposite from the glamour "statement" ringtones that some consumers wanted. Thus the 25 ringtones that were to be released had to be good by Steve's qualitative standards. They had to be insanely great. In the epoch when the iPhone was first released, they were certainly unique and perhaps deemed great by many.

One could argue that perhaps only a handful of these sounds, some quite whimsical, could be tolerated as a ringtone. For example, "doorbell" invokes a response of attention but perhaps in the direction of the front door.

Late in 2007, the legalities were sorted out and an update to GarageBand allowed a subsection of iTunes music to be made into a custom ringtone. Later on, this functionality was built into iTunes and still exists today, although the feature is only used by a small percentage of iPhone users for a number of reasons.

Scientists at Bell Laboratories, Human Factors Research Lab performed numerous studies on ringers, from buzzers to thumpers. They studied tonal quality and duration along with the decibel levels needed for the brain to recognized the call alert. They even tested the Grandpa to the iPhone "old phone" ringtone. In 1956, 300 research subjects in Crystal Lake, Illinois found the "musical tone ringer" to be "pleasant," but took most test subjects over a week or so to get accustomed to it. However, when pressed, a majority of test subjects wanted the old bell ringer back. Not much has changed since from the days of the early Human Factors research, the brain still works the same, but the technology obviously allows for more finite control of the sounds a ringtone creates.

Ideally, a ring tone should register very clearly and distinctively in the audio range that is central to human hearing, from about 2 to 4 KHz, with a Dynamic range (quietest to loudest) of about 96 dB. Even though this audio range is quite crowded with a lot of sound, it is also precisely where most spoken languages carry a majority of phoneme distinction, and thus, we have evolved a relatively high level of sound discrimination central to this audio range.

For a ringtone to be decoded ideally by the brain, the timbre of the audio envelope ideally should pulse to a full dynamic range to nearly no sound with-in a 3 - 5 second cycle (Bell Labs Research). The relative amplitudes of the various harmonics primarily determine the timbre of instruments and sounds, though onset transients, formants, noises, and inharmonicities also play a role.

In 2002, Apple acquired the German digital audio workstation company, Emagic. One of the driving forces behind the company was a former medical doctor turned computer music application programmer, Dr. Gerhard Lengeling, who went on to become Senior Director, Software Engineering, Music Applications at Apple. Dr. Lengeling's work helped create the widely successful Logic Pro and GarageBand applications.

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