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1994·Early web, before YouTube

Nokia tune

Thirteen notes from a 19th-century guitar piece, heard by more people than any other melody.

You might remember it as Gran Vals, Nokia ringtone

A sound

The story

What this was

Francisco Tárrega's Gran Vals, four bars of it, set as a ringtone in 1994 and played an estimated billion-plus times a day at its height. The first sound the whole world shared, and an early internet joke long before phones had browsers.

It first appeared in 1994, during early web, before YouTube.

The same internet

Early web, before YouTube

More like this

Related

Nothing related yet. Relationships are recorded where evidence supports them, not inferred from similarity.

Behind the record

Where it came from

There is no original to identify: this spread through many separate posts at once rather than from a first one. ViralWorld holds no copy of it either — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is the record.

Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this, because research established there was not one — it appeared in many places at once.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

What happens
Francisco Tárrega's Gran Vals, four bars of it, set as a ringtone in 1994 and played an estimated billion-plus times a day at its height. The first sound the whole world shared, and an early internet joke long before phones had browsers.
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