For Whom The Ring Tones Toll

I am fascinated by ring tones. I spend an (supposedly) unhealthy amount of time and money listening to and downloading the latest tunes; guess it has something to my being extremely hyperactive as a child. Wonder where all that hyperactivity disappears to when my normal work is involved? I have a circle of friends who are in the same boat as I am and it seems to be getting to be an addiction! Our tastes go all the way from classical western and Indian tunes, operatic compilations to the latest form of pop, rock, metal, hip-hop, ghazals, bollywood hits (and not-so-hits) and even French, African and Latin songs. Aficionados, what?

Some facts about the ring tone:

1. The sound made by any phone, whether mobile or fixed (land line), indicating that a call or message is being received by that instrument is called a ring tone. The proper nomenclature should be ‘ring sound’ as in many cases there is no aspect of a ‘tone’ to it.

2. Modern receivers allow adjustments to the volume and offer many variations in the type of ring tone to allow differentiation between two or more instruments lying side by side and also suit customers specific requirements, such as for the hearing impaired.

3. The first telephones had a bell which made a ‘ring’ing sound when struck by a hammer, operating electromagnetically, to announce a call. While this system is still common, most cell phones and modern land line phones have advanced from the ring to producing different kinds of sounds.

4. Research had shown that a single long ring to indicate an incoming call usually meant the person would wait for the instrument to stop ringing before picking it up. For this reason the ring – pause – ring system evolved. Of course now, melody based ring tones play the whole snippet of a song so the pause doesn’t apply.

5. Towards the late 1980s mechanical ring tones were slowly getting replaced by electronic ones progressing from single tones to those playing two, three or more tones and then on to melodies.

6. Mobile phones with customised ring tones were available in 1996 with Japanese manufacturers offering a number of options, both customised and pre-recorded.

7. Downloadable ring tones were available from 1998 and this service has now become an enormously successful industry right across the globe.

8. Popular songs began to be used as real tones, and were distributed from late in 2002.

To paraphrase a saying in for a song then in for a ring tone. All things, however vague about the ring tone interests the little group we have. We actually have competitions on which of us accesses the latest ones and play antakshari or even a modified form of scrabble with the names of the tones. We are forever swapping tones and melodies amongst ourselves. Reading all our activities can be injurious to your health and I can very well imagine your feeling towards the author .”Ask not for whom the bell tolls .. it might be ringing for me”!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 11:20 am and is filed under Cellphones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.