It used to be my wont around this time of the year to think of my musical misdeeds and resolve to engage in behaviours that would counter my deficiencies of the previous twelve months over the subsequent 365 days. I would resolve to practice longer. Mastering more repertoire. In a more focussed fashion. I would resolve to put musical pen to manuscript paper for a set period of time per day. I would resolve to listen to more music; to become more than a passing acquaintance with the orchestral canon, the operatic oeuvre, the chamber music catalogue; to attend more live performances. I would resolve to work my way through recordings of famous jazz pianists, jazz trios, jazz quartets and quintets and big band ensembles. Learn to play the hundreds of standards I still didn’t know. I would resolve to get to grips with world music just a little [more than before]; to learn how to compose for hurdy-gurdy, how
ringtones
The Harmonic Language of Ringtones
I’ve always been a Nokia phone user until now, the arrival of my new generation iPhone, and checking out the new ringtones in such close proximity to writing my Scales as Propaganda blog entry made me listen to my options with slightly different ears. Each phone I’ve upgraded to has had improvements in the quality of sound used for the ringtone, but each new upgraded phone has also had a completely new suite of tiny compositions competing for my approval. How do these micro-musics reflect the pitch patterns of our day? A quick analysis of my new iPhone options: To start with let’s subtract from the 25 standard ringtones the non-pitched or single-pitched options: ‘Bark’, ‘Boing’, ‘Crickets’, ‘Duck’, ‘Motorcycle’, ‘Old Car Horn’, ‘Pinball’, ‘Robot’, and arguably ‘Digital’ which is pitched, but basically just use old-fashioned fax or dialup-style harmonics, ‘Alarm’ which is also a harmonic-derived sound which really only signifies ‘alarm’ in any sonic sense, ‘Timba’ which is a drumming
Elissa Milne 