alert, alert bell Kaboodle Sound
Your Country Needs Lerts [disquiet0024-alertsuite]

A compilation of alert sounds for digital communications, created for the Disquiet Junto.

All of the individual sounds are available for download here:
[Dis] Functional Alert Loops [Your Country Needs Lerts] by DJ Kaboodle.

Assignment:

"This week's project is about "functional music." You will make four individual sounds that serve as alerts for digital communications. They will be in these categories:

1. email arrival
2. incoming phone call
3. new IM received
4. calendar event alert

"The goal is that the four alerts will work together as a suite — that is, that they will complement each other, yet be distinct and recognizable from each other... you'll present these four alert sounds as one single track, repeating each sound a few times."

Method:

I don't like alert bells. I hate them. So, I haven't used an audible bell in years.

Way back in the 90s, when I first got a 'home computer', I quickly tired of Windows' built-in sounds. So I had all sorts of amusing sounds sampled from the Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead and so on - but even these got on my nerves eventually. Then, one day, I hit on the 'novel' idea of having no sound at all.

I think most people working with music eventually opt to turn off all 'alert bells' and similar aural annoyances. There's nothing more irritating than trying to record a track and have an e-mail beep interrupt what would have been a great take...

So the sounds I created were both a reaction to the irritation of the audible alert noises, and what I would use as sounds if I did use audible alerts. Also, they express the irritation that the interruption of e-mails, phone calls, IM messages and appointments often represent.

• For the e-mail arrival noise, I opted for the sound of a 'splat', because that is roughly the sound I imagine a tin of Spam makes when its contents are slopped onto the floor.

• For the incoming phone call, I chose a chainsaw because I find it similarly irritating - and a phone call at a bad time is like a chainsaw to your thoughts.

• For the IM message, I chose heavy breathing, because there are so many perverts, marketeers and other time-wasters who use instant messaging to annoy you even further.

• And for the calender event, I chose a funereal bell, as it represents the hours of your life ticking away (or being stolen away by idiots), until the grim reaper comes to take you away... at least, that's how looking at calendar appointments makes me feel...

Due to time constraints I couldn't create any entirely new sounds, so I found the appropriate sounds at Freesound, adapted, chopped, remixed and edited them, and made them all loop-able. I made them into this simplistic demo, which summarises my feelings and experiences of the 'audible alert', while also showcasing how the sounds may be used together.

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Track image adapted from these images:

content8.flixster.com/photo/11...1085534_ori.jpg (from the page rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/s.../spike_milligan)

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil...ted_Kingdom.svg

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil...ert_for_turningcars%22-NARA-_513925.jpg

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil...cious_person_oract%5E-NARA-_535209.jpg

The gag "Be alert! Your country needs lerts!" was taken from The Goon Show, written mostly by Spike Milligan, who had presumably seen (or contributed to) the war-time graffiti, where the gag was painted on "Be Alert!" posters.

For more on the Goons, check out the following links:

youtube.com/watch?v=fb14Cstuc34

thegoonshow.net

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More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
Disquiet Junto