Ring Tone Rodeo

The BBQ Pit
1

Beethoven. Rimsky-Korsakov. Modest Mussorgsky. Ravel. All, in their own way, geniuses. All managed to capture something, a passing moment, and tie it to paper without crushing it. Through many years of performances, some of the world’s most gifted musicians have honed, interpreted, practised these works, giving us some truly precious recordings.

You are not one of them.

Yes, you. You, with the fucking mobile phone. Sitting behind me in the “no mobile” section of Virgin Trains’ “doesn’t tilt yet but it will, honest” train.

Yes, well done, that was Night On A Bare Mountain. Truly, reducing it to a succession of shittily modulated bleeps has crystallised the listening experience. Those were real tears in my eyes.

Ah, the recital has moved on. Bolero never sounded so spare, so stark, so winsomely dorkish.

No, I have no desire to hear Per Elisa (Socially Stunted Fuckwit arrangement).

Please, I would rather eschew the Flight Of The Digital Bumblebee.

No - please! Not the 1812 Overture! (But my, don’t those cannons sound authentic…)

What possesses these people? Why, whenever I board a train, am I followed by an apparently endless cavalcade of people who not only won’t switch off their fucking mobiles, they wish to try out every single fucking ring tone? PUT IT ON VIBRATE AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ARSE!

Sorry, I realise mobile rants are, like, so last millennium, but this happens every time I get on a train. Fuckers.

2

You should move to Texas. I think it’s legal to shoot people who sample their ring tones in public places. I’m neither a lawyer nor a Texan, though, so don’t take this a legal advise :slight_smile:

3

At least it was good music. (if you can call it ‘music.’)

At least it wasn’t a Back Street Boys medley.
Or Brittney Spears’ latest hit or other crap like that.

4

Surely some entrepeneurial sort has started producing cellphone buttplugs by now. It could be a rather tight niche market, but one that’s ripe for penetration.

5

I want to convert some death metal songs to ring tones, just to annoy the sort of people who would use (and abuse) classical music in that regard.

Anyone know how to make a ring tone?

6

In all my time working at Starbucks, I have heard exactly one cell phone tune that sounded cool. Just one. It was a well-done version of the Knight Rider theme, and possibly the reason I still like it is it belongs to one of our regulars, and he always answers it quickly and goes outside to talk.

But jeez, I thought Fur Elise was bad enough when everyone and their dog plays it on the piano …

[hijack arr matey] One of my coworkers has a phone that’ll let you record your own ring with the phone’s mike. She left it in the back one day while I was washing dishes and I was subjected to about five minutes of “Paula, pick up your damn phone. Paula, pick up your damn phone. Paula …” et cetera. [/hijack arr matey]

7

I think it depends on the phone. My sister has a fancy-schmancy phone that you can program with your own music (up to a three note chord!). I don’t know what kind it is.

Of course, she programmed it with Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca.

8

A friend has her cell phone programmed to play the theme from Mission: Impossible, which is highly appropriate because (at least when I call her) she never seems to get my voicemail messages.

9

Now, honestly. That was terrible!

10

I think that’s pretty keen.

I admit I have a dorky, inappropriately chirpy cell phone ring (Toccata), but my little boy picked it out (he chose La Cucaracha first, but decided the Dracula theme was cooler). However, I have it set very low, so as not to offend.

11

I like ring tones, in theory. It’s fun to make nerdy ones, like themes from Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings and Princess Mononoke. Once I boogie along to them once or twice on my computer, I load them onto my girlfriend’s phone and let her do with them what she will. It’s neato.

I do not, however, like the kind of people discussed in the OP, who have to listen to every single freaking ringtone on their phone, in full, invariably while on public transport of some sort. And by the time they play the last ringtone, their microbrains have forgotten what the first one sounded like, so back they go to the start again. It’s enough to make me say, “AAAAIIIEEEEEE, I WILL KILL YOU NOW!”, except I never do, because, unlike them, I have a vague idea of what constitutes socially acceptable behaviour and what does not.

12

Sitting in my office has got to be up there with the worst train journey…

At present, apart from the bloody standard Nokia Classical ringtones, we have…(all within earshot of me…)

Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond)
Blackadder theme
James Bond theme
Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
The Flintstones
The Muppets
Looney Tunes
Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppllin)
Benny Hill theme
Some Steps song
…and many, many more. Have to agree with the “Aaarrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!..” sentiment expressed above.

13

I’ve heard the bridge from “The Winner Takes It All” (Abba), the Cantina Band theme from Star Wars, the theme from The Great Escape and many more lately.

14

Hi. My Ericsson plays The Godfather Theme, and you can all fuck off. :slight_smile:

15

I hate ring tones; I once went to the trouble of programming mine with a proper rendition of the theme from The Muppet Show (the version of this that is available for download is riddled with bum notes) - at the end of this huge endeavour, I thought “Why? Why have I done this?”.

My phone now goes:
[Chirp]
[three second pause)
[Chirp Chirp]

In most cases, innocent bystanders are spared the terror of hearing the double chirp because I will have picked up the call.

16

I have mine on Vibrate, but if I so wish to put the ringer on, it will play “It’s a grand old team to play for”.

17

I don’t carry my phone on my person (it’s usually in my purse or sports bag) so I can’t set it to vibrate. I do have it set to play a song - because that way I know it’s MY phone ringing and not someone elses’s! I had the generic ring-ring, but then I got sick of checking it and finding it was someone else’s phone. Even cell phones on the TV would send me on a hunt for mine - they all sounded similar to my ring.

So in my case, the song is simply so I know it is indeed my phone ringing, I don’t do it to piss other people off. Offhand, I can’t even tell you what song it is, but I know it is my phone when I hear it. (until I run into another one on TV or IRL with the same tune, at least).

18

Same here. A coworker at a previous job had his phone set to play John Carpenter’s Halloween theme when it rang. Now that was cool.

All o’ the rest o’ y’all can stick with Drastic’s twitchy sphincter.

19

Yeah, I hate those things. The only things worse are those Goddamned Christmas cards that play Jingle Bells all on the same note when you open them (or happy birthday or whatever).

So you’ll never see me using a musical ring. But if I did, it’d be Saint-Saens * Bacchanale de Samson et Dalila * or maybe * Dance of Curses * by Yoko Kanno. Or how about Pachbel’s Canon. At least that’s nice and relaxing.