Virginia Knight wrote:

>Recently for no particular reason we were thinking about the sounds you
>can set many computers to make when (for example) mail arrives, a program
>crashes or the machine simply wants to attract your attention.  ...

I once had the Hallelujah chorus ring out as an alarm sound on my Mac,
but I could not bear it after about a week (especially if I used it to
tell me it was lunch time...).

Recently when I got my first cell phone, I immediately listened to all
the sounds it can make instead of just a nice ringing bell (I wish they
had that)-- they have part of the Ode to Joy, part of a Bach passacaglia...
and other artificial sounding versions of good music.  I KNOW that after
three rings I would HATE the piece, so I just use a simple beep.

This is the same issue, for me, as the ubiquitousness of music.  On the
phone on hold, in office buildings, stores, train stations, super markets
-- music everywhere, all the time.  I hate it, because it saps out much of
the special quality of music, and makes it just more noise pollution (apart
from the choices of this music which is another sorry story).  Music would
no longer "calm the savage breast" if it were always playing -- only
silence would.

Whoops, just got a BOOOP sound -- that means I have work email to attend
to...

Miguel Muelle
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www.mindspring.com/~mmuelle