Chances are you’ve heard the Nokia ringtone before. Sampled from part of a Spanish guitar composition written in 1902, it has been the default ringtone on Nokia handsets for nearly 18 years. But handsets have changed since the Nokia 2110 of the early 90s. As polyphonic ringtones became standard, Nokia remixed their tune to take advantage of the wider range of notes and tones. Then came digitally-recorded ringtones, and Nokia followed up with a more authentic sounding guitar rendition of the tune.
Now, its nearly 2012, and Nokia is planning to release their first Windows-powered phones. To mark the next evolution of their hardware, Nokia has decided a remix of the classic tune is in order. Instead of doing it themselves, they are crowd sourcing the new tune as a contest.
To help explain and promote the contest, Nokia has released the following video:
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjM6fMD0eFI&feature=player_embedded’]
If you’ve got any kind of musical mixing talent in you, have a crack at modernizing the classic tune and submit it to their site here. You could win $10,000 if your composition is picked. Also, the five runner-ups will be awarded $1,000 each. Don’t have any musical talents? No problem. You can still visit the site to vote on the winner.
While cash prizes are always a great incentive, Nokia wants to also point out that “having your very own Nokia Tune heard over 1 billion times a day is an exciting enough reason in itself.”
Also, I don’t know about you, but the handsets in Nokia’s video take me down memory lane. Well played, Nokia.
By the way, anyone who is interested in the source for the Nokia tune, the original song is called Gran Vals.
You can hear it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpeWHtlIsB4&feature=related
About 12 seconds in you’ll recognize the jingle. It appears in a few places throughout the track. Pretty song.