In an office where everyone has mobile phones ringing regularly, it is all too easy to descend into a barbarous cacophony where musical genres clash, and trills compete with chiming. It should be possible to arrange for each worker to have a different but complementary ringtone, based on their occupation, position and seniority.

Certain departments could have an artist allocated, e.g. marketing could have ABBA, with the manager getting their most memorable melody, perhaps "Dancing Queen", and underlings getting the more obscure tracks like "S.O.S." or "Fernando". Accounts could get Travis ("Sing" for the boss, "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" for the teaboy), and the receptionist could have something loud and brash like Geri Halliwell.
-- pottedstu, Sep 26 2001

The Phrog Phrog
Silences noisy unattended mobile phones [marklar, Jun 16 2011]

What happened to the good old days when the mobile phones simply made a fog-horn sound or a gong? Things were so simple then.
-- pathetic, Oct 03 2001


If you want harmony, force employees to have a ring tone that consists of one note on the pentatonic scale playing, however, different beats. That way, no matter how many phones are ringing at the same time, there will always be harmony.
-- sdm, Oct 03 2001


A thought: my phone lets you record a sound for your ring tone, although the quality is atrocious. It would be cool if everyone had a different animal noise as their ring tone, possibly themed to give a tropical rain forest or farmyard effect.
-- pottedstu, Oct 03 2001


And somebody is forced to have the ringtone as used in Trigger Happy TV, so when it goes off the entire office can shout in unison: "HELLO? NO, I'M IN THE OFFICE! NO, RUBBISH, TOTAL RUBBISH!".
-- vincebowdren, Oct 03 2001


I kinda like the idea of taking a really obvious piece of classical music (like, shudder, Pachelbel's Canon) and having everyone's phone play a different instrument's part. Pachelbel would work exceptionally well, because if any two phones rang at the same time (to the best of my remembrance) the sound would not be discordant. Correct me, please.
-- innerlemming, Oct 04 2001


[pottedstu] //In an office where everyone has mobile phones ringing regularly// I t would be easier to achieve some coherence if they did ring regularly; the problem is that they ring frequently but irregularly.

[innerlemming] //like, shudder, Pachelbel's Canon// Although somewhat overplayed - there are many other equally fine pieces of the same period that are rarely heard, including the gigue that belongs with the canon - it's still a beautiful work.

//Correct me, please.// You are correct, with the condition that the parts have to be played at exact multiples of two bars apart. That might have been difficult to achieve in 2001, but in 2011 it should be a trivial software problem, as long as the 'phones can synchronise their timing. All pieces that have a ground bass - a repeating bass line with a likewise repeating chord structure - could be used like this.
-- spidermother, Jun 12 2011


something by Philip Glass...
-- FlyingToaster, Jun 12 2011


//Glass// Perfect.

A friend of mine was once on a bus in rural France, watching the rhythmically repeating but gradually changing geometric patterns of the vineyards and orchards. He happened to have a Philip Glass recording, and got it played on the bus's sound system - perfectly complementing the view. Until other passengers objected and had it stopped. Philistines.
-- spidermother, Jun 12 2011


//other passengers objected//
It was the right thing to do, all the same. Heck, it'd be the right thing to do even if your friend didn't enjoy Glass' music.
-- mouseposture, Jun 12 2011


imagining some weirdo that optimizes everything they would likely look up the psychology of most pleasing tone to accompany a glance, rather like human resources first impressions, the emotion of the glances that accompany the tone could be affected with the tone

comic ughness that somewhere out there there is a "smooth HR optimized" ringtone. actually I looked it up online it kind of exists. "exectones"
-- beanangel, Jun 13 2011


All the phones could synchronize on a continuously playing set of songs. Normally the phones would be silent, but still keep track of the MIDI timecode. During an incoming call, each phone would begin playing a different track. When many calls are coming in at once, the music will sound rich and full.

Of course, the songs must be carefully selected so there are no large rests in any of the tracks, less a call go unnoticed.
-- Aq_Bi, Jun 16 2011


There is of course an anphibious solution [link]
-- marklar, Jun 16 2011



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