Can anyone confirm my suspicions that the startup “chord” (“DUMMMMMMMMMM”) you hear when you fire up a Mac is actually the final chord from the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life”, slightly altered? I’ve Googled this query to death and have found nothing.
On which model of Mac? Every processor type uses a different power-up chime.
It’s on my 2001 iMac and the old G4 we use at work, circa 1998.
Well, I have a G4 Cube, and the power-up sound seems clearly electronic in nature, as opposed to the ending chord in “A Day…,” which was produced by the orchestra…
hrh
hrhomer is correct. The startup chime is made of electronic tones and isn’t a sample. The sounds used for the startup sound and the “Death Chime” are stored in ROM, and I doubt they’d sacrifice a large amount of memory for the startup sound.
That said, it may be a tribute to the final “Day in the Life” chord. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say this for sure, but I could see how you’d think that.
Oh, and David Emery has a good selection of startup and death chimes from different Mac models:
http://www.mackido.com/EasterEggs/HW-Sounds.html
Pulling out my copy of “The Beatles Complete Scores”, I see that the long, final chord of A Day In The Life is just an Emaj. Not exactly an unusual chord, so the opening chime of the iMac could very well be the same chord and not be copying it.
I searched a good long while, and can’t believe I found no info. on who the author of that chord was. There’s so much Apple History/Mac Love stuff on the web, yet not this piece of trivia. Hmm.
Like toadspittle, I thought this would be easy info to find, but I wasn’t able to find it. However, I work closely with some Apple Devs so I’ll ask them about it and report my findings.
FYI, Brian Eno was hired to compose the Win95 Startup sound.*
*[sub]This was not provided as an invitation to post hilarious MS bashing commentary. If any appears in this thread, I will not report my findings. Waaah.[/sub]
I just sent an e-mail to http://www.theapplemuseum.com to see if they can dig anything up.
You might be referring to the Sosumi (so sue me) sound. Way back, Apple Records threatened to sue Apple Computer over the name. They wouldn’t, so long as Apple Computer didn’t produce any music. Since Sosumi is an E flat and thus music, Apple Computer was thumbing its nose at Apple Records with both the name and sound itself.
Emaj is pretty common chord, but there are many different ways of playing an Emaj. Basically, any combination of E, G#, and B is an Emaj, but not all those combinations are exactly identical. According to this, the way it’s played on a guitar is E, B, E, G#, B, E. I don’t know if this is how it’s done in “A Day in the Life,” but I’m assuming that it is.
Also, does anyone have an mp3 or wav of the sound, because I’ve always used PCs and am unfamiliar with the chord.
In the song, the chord is played on a piano, IIRC
If you’re on a Mac (either 9 or X), pick up a copy of Mactracker. You’ll be able to hear the startup chime of every Mac ever made. Be sure to check out the chime for the Twentieth Anniversary Mac. You’ll be craving a pina colada afterwards.
In that case, it could be done many, many different ways. I found the song in my dad’s record collection, but I don’t have a good enough ear to determine how the chord is formed. I can’t tell for sure, but I think it might be piano, in addition to other instruments (bass?).
I really should listen to the song before I post, because it’s been years since I last heard it, but anyway, going by memory, it sounds like the chord was hit very hard with the damper pedal down, so that it starts all the strings in the piano resonating.
The following is an excerpt from “ABBEY ROAD TO ZAPPLE RECORDS A BEATLES ENCYCLOPEDIA” by Judson Knight
That Long, Long Note
The final chord of “A Day in the Life,” possibly the most famous single note in rock history, lasts a staggering forty-two seconds—longer than a few entire songs by the Beatles.
Once again, John and Paul knew what kind of sound they wanted to create, but they didn’t know how to get it. Initially they tried humming together—the four group members, Mal Evans, and a few others. But their attempts to do that just made them laugh, and they got no more than five seconds of this mantra-like humming.
So instead, Martin sat all four Beatles, along with Evans, down before three pianos—two uprights and a grand. Martin himself took a seat in front of a harmonium, a reed organ. On cue, all six men struck the same chord together.
Recording Engineer Geoff Emerick had his faders, which control volume input, turned as low as possible. As the note began to fade, Emerick slowly began turning his faders up until they reached full volume input. A squeaky chair, accidentally bumped by Ringo, can be heard in the fade-out, along with the hum of the air conditioners in the recording studio.
The chord itself, E Major, was associated in the 1700s with Heaven.
Sosumi is different from the startup sound. Sosumi is an abrupt alert sound. Rather annoying, too. It always grates on me. I don’t like being scolded by my computer.
No luck from my Apple Dev colleagues - they know who authored the sound, but he’s long gone and they don’t know how to contact him.
Sorry to get your hopes up - I was curious about this myself.
As a Beates fan since 1963, and an Apple Computer fan since 1986, I have always thought it was a rough interpretation of the opening chord of “A Hard Days Night.” I hear that familiar Richenbacher 12 string chime in my head ever time I’ve turned one on a Mac for the last 20 some years. As an IT, I don’t see much of a huge change in it over the years, though the new iMacs have a much deeper tone to it now. Sounded more like a high pitched toy in the first Macs.
When you read why and how the Beatles and George Martin chose that chord, you can see why Steve Jobs probably chose a close version of it too for that dramatic effect (being the great creative image force that he is), and also being the the big Beatles fan that he was and still is. Looks like they both chose it for all the same reasons. I find Martin’s quote stating: “…The strident guitar chord was the perfect launch” (long before the word launch was computer related) to be a very telling clue in itself. Not lost on Computer Geeks like Jobs and Woz I’m sure, they liked a good twist of a word as much as The Beatles did.
From Wikipedia:
------“A Hard Day’s Night” is immediately identifiable before the vocals even begin, thanks to George Harrison’s unmistakable Rickenbacker 360/12 12-string guitar’s “mighty opening chord”.[13] According to George Martin, “We knew it would open both the film and the soundtrack LP, so we wanted a particularly strong and effective beginning. The strident guitar chord was the perfect launch”[10] having what Ian MacDonald calls “a significance in Beatles lore matched only by the concluding E major of “A Day in the Life”, the two opening and closing the group’s middle period of peak creativity”.[14] “That sound you just associate with those early 1960s Beatles records”.[15] ---------
I think it’s more likely the start up chime is that cord, rather than the last chord ever played by the Beatles off the Abby Road Album that you guys are talking about.
Wikipedia further explains exactly why it was created, and details the exact chords and instruments that are in it here:
A Hard Day's Night (song) - Wikipedia
Anyone know what sounds zombies make when they start up?
“BRRRRRAAAAAIIIIINNNNNNSSSSS!!!”