Music is everywhere. It sounds cliché, but its true. You can barely do anything without hearing music. Go into a store, there's music. Watch a TV show or movie, there's music. Music shapes our experience, influences our moods, and can even alter our thoughts. Music is powerful stuff.
We might not realize it, but software companies, especially Microsoft, have gotten on the music bandwagon. Have you ever noticed that your computer plays sounds on startup and when displaying messages? You probably have, but you probably have never thought about how these sounds are precisely engineered and composed to make you perceive a better and more refined computing experience.
Take first (going away from the title of this post) the Mac startup chime. A simple beep would convey the same message as the harmonious chord a Mac makes when you hit the power button, but that beep wouldn't convey the same feeling. The chime sounds pleasant and puts the user at ease, while a beep sounds alarming, and puts the user on edge--not what Apple wants.
Every windows release since 3.1 (all the way back in 1992) has had at least a startup sound. Starting with Windows 8, however, the startup sound has been silenced by default. Here is a page that gives the Cliff's Notes on startup sounds for various Windows releases. Even the humble "Ta Da" of Windows 3.1 served its purpose well. The operating system was new and different, and the sound put that right in everyone's faces.
The Windows 95 Startup sound became one of the iconic sounds of the Windows era. It is still known as "The Microsoft Sound." In an interview about this sound, composer, Brian Eno said in an interview "the thing from the agency said, “We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,” this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said “and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.” This proves that Microsoft was thinking about that first impression that the computer makes on the users when they start it up.
Beginning with Windows 95, Microsoft always included some short MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) songs hidden deep in system directories. These songs were there for product support, and due to their obscure locations deep in the bowels of the file system, users were unlikely to delete them. If someone called in with sound problems, the support technician could direct the user to open these MIDI files, thus be better able to diagnose the issue.
Microsoft could have easily thrown together some scales, sweeps, and musical nonsense that used as many MIDI instruments and parameters as possible, but would the average user would not know what to listen for. People know when they hear music, and can usually describe what they hear in it. The original set of MIDI files included a song titled "Canyon". This was great for the time of Windows 95, but it's Super-Mario-Bros.-esqe sound quickly became outdated. Not much changed with the files for several Windows versions.
Over the years, Microsoft worked with different composers, and the sounds changed with the times. The Windows 98 startup sound was futuristic and abstract. As computers were becoming more capable and accessible, this sound tapped into peoples' vision of the future at that time and the feelings that went with it. The Windows 2000 startup sound is (in my opinion) the best sound from Microsoft. This sound accompanied a major new set of features aimed at user-friendliness that we take for granted now, and the flow of the sound mirrors the new and smoother user experience.
Windows XP, released in 2001, was the most musical of all Windows versions. It played music during the system setup, before the startup sound was even heard! That is, if the sound drivers were in order. This music stays hidden away in a system folder where it is unlikely to be found. The inclusion of this song written a while before by Brian Eno was apparently a last minute decision by the development team. They had this song lying around, and members of the team in charge of the "Out of Box Experience" really wanted to use it.
The increased use of music went with the more plush experience of the new Windows version--display elements were more colorful, menus faded in and out, buttons were more 3-dimensional, and the graphics were higher resolution. Why would Microsoft stop at treating only one sense to the new experience?
Another musical facet of Windows XP was the new MIDI song. It replaced "Canyon," and exercises a wider variety of MIDI instruments and controls. It takes a trip through many different kinds of music. This song, titled "Onestop," was also included in Windows 7. The people who actually care about these things gave this song a reception about as mixed as the genres it includes. Some don't like it because it is such a musical hodgepodge, and some liked it for its variety. The variety of Onestop suits its purpose better, as it is more likely to catch a problem with MIDI playback.
Windows XP also included a good array of sample music in each user's music folder. I especially liked the Scherzo from Beethoven's 9th Symphony performed by Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony. Incidentally, Windows 7 and 8 had Richard Stolzman performing "The Maid with the Flaxen Hair." I was disappointed to look in the Windows 10 music library to find nothing at all.
Windows XP had by far the best array of system notification sounds. I especially love the scary "critical stop" sound that always signalled something bad. People loved making fun of the Windows XP sounds, probably because there was a lot of material. British conductor, Rainer Hersch and his orchestra perform among other pieces the "Windows Waltz" that puts XP sounds into a musical package. XP also spawned the "Windows Error Remix" that combines various notification sounds with a prominent role given to the critical stop. Windows developed a reputation for throwing myriad errors, and music like this reflects users' frustrations.
After XP came the infamous Windows Vista, a short lived operating system that got Microsoft into some hot water. Many features were either not ready for prime time, or poorly implemented. Vista brought a major shift in the interface design that included transparencies, animations, and a lighter and more open look. The sounds mirrored this. In addition to lighter and more transparent notification sounds, the startup sound was a four-note theme based on the four colors of the Windows logo and a rhythm that went "Win-DOWS Vis-TA"
There has been disappointingly little recent development in the musical aspect of Windows. Windows 7, 8, and 10 have notification sounds, but they all pale in comparison to those of XP. In many instances, system sounds are not played. I theorize that the shift to smaller mobile devices from desktops drives this trend. Back in the day, people would sit down at their computers, usually including a set of desktop speakers, and fire them up. Computing was an experience in itself.
Now, desktop computers are on the way out, and people rarely shut their laptops, tablets, and phones down. If there was a startup sound, it would never get played. Since people don't want their devices to be noisy, they don't generally make a wake up or log on sound. How many times do you wake your phone up in a day? A sound every time would get annoying.
Software is becoming more and more mobile oriented, which is pushing sound out. Will people want sounds back? probably not. We are to a point where we take technology for granted, and the experience of using it is nothing special. With all the noise coming at us in modern life, it may be good that our devices keep their mouths shut.
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