Nokia tune

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The Nokia tune (called Grand Valse on old Nokia mobile phones) is the melody used in all Nokia mobile phones as the default ring tone. Nokia also uses it in advertising. The tune is an excerpt of a few bars from Francisco Tárrega's Gran Vals; Nokia nevertheless claims it as a sound trademark.

A midi version of Tárrega's short piece can be heard here. The familiar tune occurs at bar 14 (00:15), and again near the end (bar 142, 02:51). In notation, it looks like this:

though in the original the final A is an octave lower.

The Nokia tune was sampled in the 1999 song "I Wanna 1-2-1 With You" by the [[Solid Gold Chartbusters.

Gran Vals was also played in the commercial for the Nokia 6630 phone, with a child on the piano, and the signature Nokia bar played in the end.

As of 2006, the pianist Marc-André Hamelin has been playing a short piece of his own composition that improvises on the Nokia tune as a concert encore. Written in a jazz-inflected style reminiscent of Poulenc, the piece is titled "Vals Irritation."

At 2006 Nokia Israel established the "Nokia Music leader"[1] competition, aimed to challenge young electronic artists to create cover tracks for the original tune.


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