Vodafone Symphonia played on 1000 phones with 53 different ringtones

Vodafone NZ hired a production team to orchestrate cellphones into “playing” Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture. The effort took 1000 phones and 53 different ringtone alerts, synchronized to recreate the famous classical piece. [via Mashable]

Watch the video of the performance as well as the making-of in two parts (part 1, part 2)

Not a first though, a collection gathered by American composer Golan Levin initiated the first original «Dialtones Symphony», where the 200 instruments played were the audience's ringing cell phones. The first concert took place on September 2nd, 2001, at the Brucknerhaus Auditorium in Linz, Austria during the Ars Electronica's annual festival. Golan Levin performed his symphony again in the summer of 2002, at the Arteplage Mobile de Jura as a production of the Swiss National Exposition. (Ringtonia)

More on cell phone and ringtones concerts/symphonies.

Bacterial Orchestra - Public Epidemic No.1

Public Epidemic No 1 from Olle Corneer on Vimeo.

Bacterial Orchestra - Public Epidemic No.1 is a cell phone performance. Cult of Mac reports via iPhonefunaddict Twitter.

It's a music art project slated for the Volt Festival June 6th in Uppsala, Sweden, where organizers hope hundreds of iPhones will communicate through audio - creating a musical organism. The result, according to Olle Cornéer and Martin Lübcke, will be a self-organizing system they describe as intelligent neural music.

Read full article.

iPhone Performer To Take Wembley Stadium

Renowned for playing host to the some of the world’s largest artists, Wembley stage will soon host it’s first mobile phone performer, singer/songwriter Gary Go. PSFK reports.

Instead of using traditional instruments, Gary Go chooses to play music with his iPhone. Using his phone’s virtual recording studio application, Go has already successfully managed to recreate melodies on guitars, drums and the piano for his new album demo and now he’s attempting it live.

Read full article.

Nokia virtual music event on March 11

Nokia will be holding an online virtual music event this Wednesday, March 11.

Hosted at events.nokia.com the online event kicks off at 10am CET and will see live Q&A sessions running between 10-11am CET and 5-6pm CET.

Nokia Conversations we’ll be providing a feed direct to the Nokia events site, reporting all the news, dishing up photo galleries and new videos.

Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra Plays Stairway To Heaven

Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra Plays Stairway to Heaven from Scott Beale on Vimeo.

Here’s The Mobile Phone Orchestra (MoPhO) from The Stanford University Center for Computer Research (CCRMA) playing “Stairway To Heaven” on their iPhones at The Crunchies 2008, a web industry awards ceremony held in San Francisco.

Spotted on the Laughing Squid.

Related links to other cell phone concert performance.

Dial-a-concert? Japan software turns mobiles musical

According to Reuters, making music has just become easier. A Japanese game maker has teamed up with the nation's leading mobile phone network carrier to enable users to play an orchestra with their fingertips.

"Game manufacturer Taito has created the "Chokkan Classic" software for NTT DoCoMo's i-mode Internet service that lets users to pick their instruments and the melody they want to play.

To activate the sounds, users must either rub or move a finger infront of their phone's infrared sensor. The sensor can also be used to sync several users' phones to create the myriad sounds of an orchestra."

Lost Trailers Found Via Text

The uses of the cell phone continue to grow, and few bands are as ingenious with their mobile devices as The Lost Trailers, who’ve incorporated the cell into their stage show. Literally. Great American Country reports.

"They’ve dubbed it the Trailer Phone, and the whole point is to make it easy for their community of fans to stay in touch.

"It’s a mutual relationship," lead singer Ryder Lee says. "They’re there for us, and we’re there for them, and our set list is a reflection of that. So if a fan wants to hear something during a show, they can just send us a text at 615-708-9463, and we will add that song to the set list right then because we have the phone on stage."

Private Telephone Concerts

The Danish music-poetry duo Bo hr Hansen & Nils Lassen has come up with a novel - and potentially very time consuming - way to promote their latest CD "Hvem er jeg?" (Who am I?).

Those buying the CD are offered a free private concert - via telephone.

In order to qualify for the concert, you need to send them an MMS (a photo via mobile phone) of yourself holding the CD, preferably with the receipt. Upon receiving the documentation, the duo will do their best to find a concert date and time that suits all of you.

[via Guerrila Innovation]

Drum Ringtones

Spotted on SMSText News, Drum Ringtones accompanied by Italian drummer Andrea Vadrucci (aka Vadrum).

Mobile Phone Playing Tunes at Electronic Music Concert in New York

Bora Yoon, a 27-year-old Korean-American played the Time Warner Center's Jazz at Lincoln Center last Friday, taking cellphone music to a famous stage. Bora Yoon uses the tones of the mobile phone keys and combines them with piano, violin, xylophone and loudspeaker sounds. Chosunilbo reports via i4U.

"The performance sponsored by Samsung Electronics proved that cell phones can indeed serve as high-tech instruments. Violinist and vocalist Yoon used the tones of the phone's keys, and combined them with piano, violin, xylophone and loudspeaker sounds. The music, on top of her bright purple dress and the night view of Central Park outside the concert hall, impressed the audience."

Click here for links to other cell phone concerts.

Playing Cellphones on Stage Has Ring Of Respectability

For some avant-garde electronic artists, cellphones are musical instruments that can be incorporated into rock, hip-hop and even modern classical music. The WSJ reports.

"Some musicians have already taken cellphone music to an extreme.

-- An Austrian rock band called The handydandy named itself after the German term for mobile phone, handy. The band, which performs at electronic arts festivals in Europe and elsewhere, has done away with ordinary instruments altogether. Each member of the quintet straps a Sony Ericsson handset around his neck like a guitar and taps away on the buttons, making all the facial and bodily contortions of an Eric Clapton or Carlos Santana while producing very different results. Watch a video of their performance,

Some aspiring DJs and hip-hop artists are beginning to experiment with cellphone, too.

-- In the town of Slough, west of London, a youth center recently began a workshop on "mobile mashups." Using cellphones equipped with special mixing software, students with stage names like MC PanicPhaze learn to splice pieces of existing tunes, add all sorts of electronic effects, and record rap vocals on top.

-- The Chicago Sinfonietta kicked off its 20th season last fall with a "Concertino for Cellphones and Orchestra," a piece built around ringtones.

There's even a small technology industry emerging, mostly in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, to serve the needs of mobile-phone musicians. The phones and other hand-held devices the Slough youth center uses, for example, come equipped with software called miniMIXA, made by the Tao Group. It turns a cellphone into a tiny sound mixer and recording studi.

Above left, classical musician (pianist and singer) Bora Yoon. Click here to hear her playing her song "Plinko" on a cellphone.

Related: - Links to other ringtone concerts and symphonies

O TELEPHONE

O Telephone is an 8 channel sound installation developed by Berlin-based Canadian artist Don Ritter.

Six modified 1960’s telephones within a darkened room randomly ring with a distinctive sound. After a ringing phone is answered by a viewer, “om” is heard through the handset and through the speaker in the body of the phone.

When viewers answer other ringing phones, the resulting “om” sounds will pan through all the answered phones. The telephones will eventually begin a composition comprised of the ringing and “om” sounds if they are not answered by viewers.

Review by Régine on we-make-money-not-art.com

Looking for mobile music projects

Today, 16th April 2007, is the final deadline to submit papers, posters and demo for the Mobile Music Workshop to be held on May 6-8 in Amsterdam.

The series of annual workshops explore how devices such as mobile phones or mp3 players, combined with ad hoc networking, Internet connection, and context-awareness, mobile music technology can give rise to new artistic, commercial and socio-cultural opportunities for music creation, listening and sharing.

[reBlogged from we-make-money-not-art.com]

Mobile phones become musical instruments

Régine over at we-make-money-not-art reports on Swedish design duo Unsworn currently previewing their new Ophonine Pophorn sofware at the Ophonines at Museo de Artes at Universidad Nacional in Bogotá, Columbia.

The Ophonine software enables mobile users to turn their mobile phone into different musical instruments, and to record and play sound loops with a simple press of a button.

"The mobile is not just a phone – it’s a powerful and very portable multimedia computer. By downloading a piece of software to your phone everyone could be walking around with a set of musical instruments in their pocket!” says Unsworn representative Erik Sandelin.

Watch demo

The New York Philharmonic Expanding ITunes, Ringtones

Fox News reports that the The New York Philharmonic will offer live concerts, or just a few minutes, to be downloaded through iTunes and five online ringtones also are available _ including Mozart's last symphonies.

The Boston Typewriter Orchestra

There's no way I can connect this one to ringtones, unless someone wanted to make a ringtone of it. Just file under fun.

There is such a thing as the Boston Typewriter Orchestra (BTO). It's "a collective endeavor which engages in rhythmic typewriter manipulation combined with elements of performance, comedy and satire". They even have CDs, concerts, and television appearances behind them.

BTO aims to entertain the masses while providing a creative outlet for the creative urges of its members.

[via Neatorama]

A new symphony is music to gamers' ears

There have been several ringtone concerts performed around the world, so why not a video gaming symphony? Well it's happening. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, a "symphony" comprising music from some of the most popular video games will be performed in Sydney next year after sell-out shows in the US and Europe.

"The Sydney Symphony will perform Play!, the "video game symphony", at the Sydney Opera House from June 20 next year, under conductor and Grammy award winner Arnie Roth.

It includes music from about 20 games such as Final Fantasy, Castlevania, Metal Gear Solid, The Legend Of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., World Of Warcraft, Lost Odyssey and Sonic The Hedgehog.

As well as a full orchestra, choir and pipe organ, the show will also feature highlight clips from the video games, which will be played on large screens above the orchestra."

MocaGoGo, an iPod killer application

MocaGoGo is an iPod killer application and a mobile service which enables users to discover, subscribe and exchange user-generated online media.

Through subscription to user-generated content, a user can automatically download media files from other mobile phones by using peer-to-peer technology. Users can search, browse and tag casting feeds directly on mobile devices. There are groups for the users, who can rate, comment and discuss within groups.

This project, by Min Weng, will be shown at the ITP WInter Show, a two day exhibition of interactive sight, sound and physical objects from student artists of ITP to be held December 17 and 18 in New York City.

Beds for audiences at a live concert

A mattress company in Israel has set up beds and blankets for the audience of a classical musical concert. [via Spluch]

The Canine Cacophony

Something we hope will be coming to a cell phone ringtone store near you: The Canine Cacophony, a public art project that creates playful encounters using sound and movement.

Canine Cacophony is a sound composition produced based on the activity and movements of the dogs in the Washington Square Park Dog Run.

What wil it sound like?

The sounds will tend towards the more natural, enhancing the chaotic, wild nature of the interactions in the dog run. We will work with a sound artist to more specifically develop sounds for the piece. For phase one of the project, the sound will be output through speakers situated along the edges of the dog run fence, facing outward. For phase 2, we will develop acoustic sound sculptures that will be placed throughout the park.

[via we-make-money-not-art.com]

The Tone Ladder

After customized ringtones for landline phones and programmable musical doorbells, another household item goes musical: the ladder.

The ToneLadder concept.

If a household ladder is extended with a melodic function, it will develop into a real musical instrument. The ordinary ladder transforms into a soundladder.

Stepping on a bar of the ladder creates a sound or tone which is different from rung to rung. So you can create a piece of music by stepping up and down on the ladder. Together with a partner you can even play a duet.

[via networked performance]

Mana live in concert on Sprint cell phones Nov 28

MANA, the first Latin band to break into a top-ten spot on the Billboard 200 and one of the hottest Mexican rock bands of all time, is coming to Sprint multimedia phones, live and in concert on Nov. 28.

Sprint Vision subscribers can enjoy the full concert free of additional charge from the best seat in the house: anywhere on the Sprint Power Vision or Nationwide Sprint PCS Networks.

[via Broadcast Newsroom]

Improvisation for Two Altered Telephones

Improvisation for Two Altered Telephones, a performance from 1999 by Julie Adler and Andrew Bucksbarg. [via we-make-money-not-art.com].

The telephones for this piece were altered by adding an AM/FM radio circuit to the phone interface. The radio circuit produces sound when its speaker output is fed back into the circuit at various points and in varying degrees.

The resulting sound is controlled through the phone keypad and a few added knobs (variable resisters).

Cellphone Concertino Video thanks to the NY Times

The New York Times offers a video of the Concertino for Cellular Phones and Symphony Orchestra by David N. Baker, held October lst in Chicago and explains just how the audience was asked to participate.

"A device similar to a traffic light signaled the audience members to activate their rings — red for the balcony, green for the orchestra seats — at various points in the piece. An assistant conductor, Terrance Gray, followed the score and activated the lights.

Four amplified mobile phones were onstage. One, operated by a teaching assistant at Indiana, Aaron Vandermeer, was programmed with Mr. Baker’s main tune and well-known classical themes like the “William Tell” gallop and a motif from the last movement of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4. The other three cellphonists onstage played random rings, sometimes timed to destroy a pastoral melody here or there.

Mr. Freeman held a brief practice session before the downbeat. “You may use as much imagination or as little as you like,” he said.

... During the performance, some in the audience held up their phones and waved them back and forth, as if to make themselves heard. Little squares of light from the phone screens studded the hall at Dominican University, one of the homes of the Sinfonietta. But the audience cellphonists seemed to lose steam toward the end of the piece, and the orchestra occasionally drowned out their rings. Organizers hoped that the sound would be better the next night, at Orchestra Hall in Chicago."

Just for the record, as this is loudly being touted as the first such performance of its kind, with the audience buzzing "we made history", it was not a first.

Dialtones Symphony was the first very ringtone concert. It was conducted by Golan Levin and performed in September 2001 at the Brucknerhaus Auditorium in Linz, Austria. The 28-minute concert was produced through the ringing of 200 visitors' phones. And there have been others since:

-- Links in Ringtonia to ringtone concerts and symphonies

-- An Informal Catalogue of Mobile Phone Performances, Installations and Artworks - through 2002

Concertino for cell phones and orchestra

U.S. jazz composer David Baker is encouraging people to use their mobile phones during the debut performance of " Concertino for Cellular Phones and Orchestra" that will open the 20th anniversary season of the Chicago Sinfonietta classical music festival next month. [via Reuters].

"During the 15-minute composition, members of the audience and the orchestra will be asked to use their cell phones at various points throughout the piece with red and green lights telling them when to turn their phones on and off.

Baker, who has more than 2,000 jazz, symphonic and chamber compositions to his credit, said people will also be encouraged to randomly increase and decrease the volume of their ring tones and try to recognize familiar tune fragments on the ring tones sounding on orchestra members' cell phones."

Dialtones Symphony was the first very ringtone concert. It was conducted by Golan Levin and performed in September 2001 at the Brucknerhaus Auditorium in Linz, Austria. The 28-minute concert was produced through the ringing of 200 visitors' phones.

Related:

-- Links in Ringtonia to ringtone concerts and symphonies

-- An Informal Catalogue of Mobile Phone Performances, Installations and Artworks - through 2002

Flash Mob Cell Phone Symphony - in a Bookstore

Sixty cell phone ringtones, going off simultaneously in a bookstore bag check. New York February 2006. View video here

"News traveled to employees in other parts of the store. At one point an announcement was made over the loudspeaker, "Attention Strand customers: your phones are going off at the bag check."

The working theory after the first two rings was that one phone was going off first and then triggering the other phones. I think some thought that the "triggering" phone was defective and the whole thing was a coincidence, and others thought that the guilty phone was specifically modified to make others ring. Either way, it was agreed that if they could find the phone that rang first and shut it off, the rest would stop as well.

[Improv Everywhere via digg]

PLAY.Orchestra

If you go down to the South Bank in London this summer, outside the Royal Festival Hall is a wonderful installation titled PLAY.Orchestra. 56 plastic cubes and 3 Hotspots are laid out on a full size orchestra stage, each cube containing a light and speaker. Sit down on the cube or stand in the hotspot to turn on that instrument and bring 58 friends to hear the full piece.

People with Bluetooth phones will be able to receive a ringtone of the piece created, as well as upload their own sound samples in September.

Each Saturday from 19 August to 30 September between 11am and 1pm we'll be running live events in the PLAY.orchestra, with live Philharmonia musicians, sound recording equipment and people on hand to help you find Bluetooth on your phone.

Record a sound using your phone and send it back to us via Bluetooth - these sounds will enter the sample library and become part of the music in the PLAY.orchestra from 23 September

[via networked performance]

Mobile Phone Performances

"Mobile phones give public space another dimension by adding a layer of communication and sound which innovative artists are turning into performance art", writes CScout looking back one mobile performances, such as Dialtones, a concert performed in 2001 entirely through the ringing of the audience's mobile phones at the Ars Electronica Festival and this year's updated version of AGORA, a 2005 performance in Williamsburg where the choreographer featured 60 dancers, plus participating audience

For this year's AGORA II people are invited "to not only bring their bodies to the performance, but also their cell phones", "to create a grand tableau - a city slice - a social experiment...

Other Mobile performances

Chicago Sinfonietta ringtone concert

Karina on mobuzz.tv today mentions the Chicago Sinfonietta's incorporating mobile ringtones into its performance.

As part of their ongoing experiment in audience participation, they are unveiling a new work called Concertino for Cell Phone and Orchestra by David Baker. During the performance, different sections of the audience will be asked to play their mobile ringtones at different times. "The grand finale will probably have everyone play their cell phone at once, according to the Director.

Other ringtone concerts:

-- Rocking the stage with mobile phones - The Handydandy consisted of five media artists from Austria using their mobile phones as musical instruments.

-- Cellphones join the orchestra - German conductor Bernd Kremlin incorporated mobile phone ringtones into his orchestra's performances.

-- Get 25,000-watt music via your mobile phone - An experimental live concert was held at the annual 2003 Ars Electronica festival where performer Tim Didymus conducted a live concert featuring music and sounds generated entirely on-the-fly from a mobile phone application.

-- Radio Ringtone Concert - The Hamburg Kunsthalle was the venue for a musical event dubbed "Wählt die Signale" (Dial the Signals), a radio concert for 144 mobile phones.

-- «Dialtones Symphony» - Was a collection gathered by American composer Golan Levin who initiated the first original «Dialtones Symphony» in 2001, where the 200 instruments played were the audience's ringing cell phones.

Offbeat:

-- Interactive Live Show - A Techno gig using mobile technology in 2001, was broadcast nationally across Japan.

-- Ringtone Concert In Estonia - The Tallinn Song Festival in Estonia planed a ringtone concert planned…sorta.

-- Cell phones and ringtones play part in new musical comedy - A stand-up comedian and a student wrote a musical comedy where cell phones and ringtones play a part.

Live Country Concert On Sprint Mobile Phones

Sprint has tied up with Universal Music Group to deliver a live country music concert to its subscribers, during a concert yesterday from Nashville’s Rocketown music venue.

Additionally, Sprint customers will be able to download ringtones, call Tones, video ringers and full-song downloads from the music store. [via Moco news]

Cellphonia: In The News: A locative-based karaoke opera

Cellphonia: In The News is a location based karaoke opera about the alienation of the contemporary technophile that includes text, sound, moving images and allows participants outside the core players to contribute as a remote chorus. Cellphonia begins anywhere anytime five people gather. [via networked performance]

"Cellphonia is an open source cell phone and Internet application that creates a street theater live opera via a conference call shared by user/participants.

A server coordinates the instant RSS Newsfeed libretto that is transmitted as text to each of the participant. The server queries the cell phones of the participants to determine each phones capability. In this way the server can make a scalable set of media that takes maximum advantage of each participants phone, allowing a large number of cellphone users to participate anytime anywhere".

Rocking the stage with mobile phones

The Handydandy consists of five media artists from Austria using their mobile phones as musical instruments.

The mobile phones are used only as interfaces and they are connected, via Bluetooth, to a computer network."

[via WMMNA]

Sale Away

Sale Away, passers-by can conduct an "orchestra" of household devices via their mobile phones on a display window.

The mechanical orchestra consists of flute, organ and brass playing vacuum cleaners, rattling kitchen mixers, buzzing ventilators, radio playing toy trains, wobbling jigsaws, dancing tumble dryers, humming refrigerators and other misused household utilities.

The conductor is a big refrigerator. This fridge is also the explanatory interface. To start the orchestra and wake up the shopping windows you have to dial the number and follow the commands displayed on the window. This call opens the door of the fridge, giving free the image of its explanatory interface, the "mobile phone robot person". The robot will explain and invite you to act. By pressing keys on the phone you can let all different instruments play along with the melody. You can set some single voices or the whole orchestra tutti.

reBlogged from networked performance

Streaming backstage footage and tour video for mobiles

Duran Duran, the old rock stars responsible for Electric Barbarella, the first song ever to be sold in a download format across the Web, are now streaming backstage footage and tour video in support of their sold out concert in Norway.

The project created by World Mobile Studios and Magus Entertainment (New York) is being hosted on TVNorge's 3G portal and promoted across web channels across Scandinavia. With Streaming services provided by Rubberduck Media Lab.

An estimated 500 000 handset are able to view the stream or download video in Norway.

World Mobile Studios creative director Roald Van Wyk believes that the mobile media channel has a powerful role in a media mix, ‘the music entertainment arena is particularly suited for the mobile channel. Duran's backstage video is perfect to both entertain people with content they wouldn't expect to consumer anywhere else, and raise the profile of the band amongst a predominantly young tech savy audience'..

(Thanks Adam!)

Telephony, Thomson & Craighead

Telephony allows gallery visitors to dial into a wall based grid of 42 Siemens mobile telephones, which in turn begin to call each other and create a piece of 'music.'

Each phone has been individually programmed with a different ringtone, which played en-masse, create various harmonic layers all of which are based in some way on the popular and prevalent, NokiaTune. The more people who dial into the work (whether inside or beyond the gallery walls) the more complex and layered the audio becomes.

A piece of anodyne 'elevator' musac also plays into the space as a kind of background layer, and is also an improvisation on Nokiatune.

From Mobile Audience via Clippings via near near future

Related article on the work of artists Thomson & Craighead

-- Original Tones

New Digital Art project for creating, converting and sharing original

Use Freeloader to create your own mobile audio art!

Freeloader is a "do-it-yourself" ringtone creation and distribution environment. It is a commission by UK based FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology)
and created by Kisky Netmedia. It allows users to input MP3, MIDI and WAV
files and turn them into original ringtone content. The web application converts audio into ringtones suitable for over 350 phones allowing for playback of experimental work for a wide user group.

The project is set to develop its content in 2005 through pupils projects, artist lead workshops, and through input from remote users - anyone who wishes to experiment with their own mobile content.

If you are a sound artist, musician, composer, or mobile tone enthusiast, or just want a new original ringtone you may like to have a go at making your own tones using Freeloader. All submitted content should be original and copyright free and will be shared with the Freeloader community growing this resource of user-generated content.

Freeloader was developed as part of FACT's Stream and Shout Project.

reBlogged from Rhizome.

Ringtone halts Ravel concert

Ananova reports that French conductor Marc Soustrot stopped a Danish Symphony Orchestra performance of Ravel's Daphne and Chloe, in Copenhagen, when he heard a ringtone from the seats.

He waited for the ringing to stop, then asked his musicians to begin the performance from the start, making them repeat a large section of the ballet score.

Graffiti Ringtones

Digit devised an interactive installation, Motoglyph for the Miami's M3 Festival - sponsored by Motorola, reports near near future via del.icio.us/tag/technology.

"The installation comprised of three glass panels within the MotoGlyph unit, each possessing its own unique library of sounds. Guests were invited to create their own unique digital signature or illustration upon the wall from which the variables of the marks and strokes were translated into the author's own sound and animation.

Users were then able to go to the MotoGlyph website where they could download an MP3 of their unique ringtone to their mobile phone."

Related mobile graffiti stories:

-- Wave Messaging - By waving the Nokia 3220 camera phone from side to side, the LED lights of the Nokia Xpress-on FunShell light up to "write" a message that appears to float in mid-air.

-- Airtexting - In March 2003, the WSJ reported from CeBIT about a phone called Kurv, made by Kyocera Wireless Corp which featured airtexting. To airtext, you type in a text like 'call me' then wave it back and forth in the air. As the phone moves, a row of blinking red lights along the top of the phone leaves the phrase trailing behind it."

-- And an article from Wap.com (no longer online) several years ago, featured a California company called Neoku.com which developed a platform called haikuhaiku. The article described a form of mobile graffiti, using a cell phone as a paint spraycan, "by waving it into the air to form a word, the text would appear onto the screen of a person passing by"

s()nic object ringtone collection launches during the "Ecoute" exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou

s()nic object, the music label dedicated solely to original mobile phone ringtones, launches its first collection during the exhibition Ecoute at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, from 22 September 2004 to January 17 2005.

During the exhibition, sonic( )bject will display a mobile telephone in a glass case. This telephone will ring, randomly choosing its sound from the sonic( )bject collection. A diverse range of sounds (instrumental or non-musical, noise or pure vibrations, timbres or melodies …), these ringtones become true "sonic objects", which arrest and intrigue the public.

The collection can be found on the web site www.sonicobject.com, which contains over 200 original ringtones, created by 17 contemporary designers.

The ringtones of the collection can be bought for 3 euros (+2 SMS). After payment by sending an SMS, the ringtone is automatically downloaded to the mobile phone.

To cater to the multitude of technical formats, an artificial intelligence system, specially conceived and developed by sonic( )bject, chooses the best format for each ringtone and for each mobile phone model to achieve the best sound quality. The mobile phone must be compatible with "sampled sound" ringtones and the subscription of the user must allow WAP connections.

The authors of the ringtones are professional sound designers, sound artists, contemporary, classic or electro-acoustic composers from the worlds of jazz, electronica and vocal art. Each author conceived, composed and produced between 8 and 25 ringtones. They are Dominique Besson, Jean-Jacques Birgé, Roland Cahen, Brian Clevinger, Vincent Epplay, Alexandre Gherban, Pascale Labbé, Luc Martinez, Joachim Montessuis, papadad, Didier Petit, Hélène Sage, Antoine Schmitt, servovalve, Bernard Vitet, Wild Shores, Hervé Zénouda...

sonic( )bject was founded by Antoine Schmitt, artist and Adrian Johnson, entrepreneur. sonic( )bject is a music publisher that has chosen to put in place a streamlined platform, assuring maximum distribution of revenue to the artists. On-line purchasing, electronic payment, minimum operating costs, word-of-mouth marketing, sonic( )bject offers an alternative business model for the composers and for the public.

Ringtone Concert In Estonia

Rafat Ali for Moco News reports on a Go Live! concert at the Tallinn Song Festival in Estonia - which has a ringtone concert planned…sorta.

"On Sep 4th, the group The Smilers will perform, and and this is how it will work: Order the tune for The Smilers' latest hit and you can be a performer. The idea is that hundreds of people will press play as soon as the conductor waves his wand, and the festival grounds will be filled with a polyphonic dream".

Cell phones and ringtones play part in new musical comedy

A stand-up comedian and a student have written a musical comedy where cell phones and ringtones play a part, which premieres in Newcastle (UK) this weekend, according to ic Teeside.

"The cast of two, Ashley and Chris are trapped in a room and must play their way out.

For extra characters, the pair have to ring people up on their mobile phones or play different roles, such as the "leading lady".

"We've created a world on stage where even the contents of the bookshelves and the ringtones on mobile phones are wry references to musicals," says Ashley, who premieres the show at Newcastle Arts Centre on Saturday".

For other examples of ringtones used in concerts or at festivals, check out this category in Ringtonia.

Interactive Live Show

One of my readers, Mirai, sent me this interesting e-mail about his being the first European to play a Techno gig using mobile technology in 2001, which was broadcast nationally across Japan.

As a freelance audio engineer for Yamaha in Tokyo, he had all the mobile
synth modules to play with and toured Japan with the Interactive Live Show.

The audience of around 1000 people were split into 4 groups, each given a telephone number to call. The phones were on stage, behind a transparent video screen (that covered the whole stage), and the audience were asked to call up the phones during the music, which set off melodies in 'C', mixed with the music.

And interesting, Mirai was recently called in by T-Mobile/Handy.de to raise the musical production standards of Ringtones, as about 250,000 ringtones were found to be of low quality.

For more on ringtones concerts staged around the world, check out this category in Ringonia.com

Get 25,000-watt music via your mobile phone

An experimental live concert was held last week at the annual Ars Electronica festival, in Linz, Austria where performer Tim Didymus conducted a live concert featuring music and sounds generated entirely on-the-fly from a mobile phone application.

US-based Tao Group is behind the technology, called Intent Sound System (iSS), a suite of audio technologies that makes it possible to relay music composed live and in high quality through a mobile phone. [Economic Times] via [Moco News]

Cell phones have joined the orchestra before. For more on ringtone concerts around the world, cf Ringtone Concerts category.

Cellphones join the orchestra

A German conductor is incorporating mobile phone ringtones into his orchestra's performances. Bernd Kremling, who runs the Drumming Hands orchestra in Wuerzburg, used ringtones ranging from Bach and Mozart to Old McDonald Had a Farm, according to Ananova.

Some phones are set off by the musicians but others have to be rung from backstage at the right moment to set off their sound.

For more on cell phone concerts performed around the world, check out Golan Levin's collection online, called An Information Catalogue of Mobile Phone Artworks.

Radio Ringtone Concert

According to a posting by Norbet Specker on EMedia Tidbits, the Hamburg Kunsthalle will be the venue for a musical event dubbed "Wählt die Signale" (Dial the Signals), which will be a radio concert for 144 mobile phones. Numbers and tones will be published on the radio site FSK and everybody is invited to contribute. Calls will be free (since nobody will answer them) and the station will air the concert itself.

For other examples of ringtone concerts, check out the Ringtones Concerts category on ringtonia.