[195/366] phone noises

[cosmolinguist]

13 What’s the notification tone on your phone for calls? Texts?

For calls it's some boring thing that came with my (Samsung) phone. One of those things I don't recognize until I hear it and then think "is that my phone? It's probably my phone" and then look at it.

My text noise, though, I know well. It's what I had on my old Blackberry, many years ago, and it has just seemed like the Correct notification sound ever since. It's just a major-chord arpeggio, and it's called "contentment." I don't even know how I got it onto this phone so I'd be sad if it went away because I don't know if I could get it back!

Comments

[ewt]

I don't know what notification sounds my phone makes, because it is always set to silent. I don't do well with phonecalls unless I can prepare, so those are generally appointment-only things, or sometimes I'll ring someone back if I have a missed call and know who it is. And I don't want notifications for texts etc if I'm working.

I used to have fake birdsong, once upon a time, from a site that took a word and transformed it into bird (it mapped a sound to each letter, I think, it wasn't an attempt at translation, but it was fun to type different words or names and listen to how they sounded). And on one previous phone I recorded myself whistling a descending glissando and used that as a ringtone, which was quite useful in noisy environments as it went through many frequencies and was distinctive.

[jesse_the_k]

Thanks for proving that my wild idea about “if I recorded a ringtone I’d be more likely to notice it” is actually sensible.

[otter]

I have a couple ring tones set. The general one is something mildly unannoying. W has his own ringtone aptly called "fall in love". My kids ringtone is set to "single tone". and I used to have another for closer friends. I still have a samsung 3G with slider keyboard. It's my 3rd one in about 8 years.

[maunzikation]

Oooh. Mine don't have much history, I chose the least annoying one for messages and one that didn't make me super anxious by itself for calls. I did, however, put a lot of thought into my alarm tone. It is the most gentle, cybre-ethereal tune I could fine among the standard ones and I set it to get louder over time (first time I did that, never seemed worthwhile with the awful ones). I love it so much because it doesn't make me hate everything more than necessary in the morning.

[jesse_the_k]

I have a “worth picking up the phone” ring for people I care about talking to — the great Vince Guaraldi piano theme from Charlie Brown. The others get vibration-not-noise.

Text tones are more customized — there are a handful of people I talk with mainly via text, and they each have their own tone.

One thing I love about my iPhone is the system alarm clock lets me assign an entire song yo each alarm. I have 5 medication alarms Through my day, but if I’m tied up and can’t reach the phone, I can enjoy the songs.

[sally_maria]

My ringtone has been the same ever since I went to a Stargate convention in 2008 and a friend shared a version of the Atlantis theme tune for my flip phone. It's pretty unusual (unless you're at a Stargate convention 😀) and carries well, so I've just stayed with it.

And back in the mid-90s I bought Star Wars sound effects on floppy disk - you know, one of the 3.5" things that were neither floppy nor disc-shaped - just because it was a cool idea, but now they make great text and notification sounds.

[barakta]

My SMSes don't seem to make a noise. I need to check if they trigger vibrates and start wearing my smartwatch more.

My phone's ringing tone is a really 80s style chirrup style ring-ring cos then I know it's a phone, although usually to hang up on whichever fuckwit is phoning me cos I can't hear anything on my mobile.