Found this interesting website while checking out an old NBC program. Never knew NBC used so many different kinds of Chime sounders.

Don't miss the earliest recording from 1929 or the 2:00 minute "I Love You" song from the 1930's, based on the NBC Chimes. I think you'll get a kick out of it:

http://www.radioremembered.org/nbc_chimes.htm

The NBC chimes are the notes G-E-C. Apparently, General Electric Corporation owned NBC in a former incarnation, and that's why those notes were chosen. However, everytime we hear 'em, we think N-B-C.

A History Of The NBC Chimes

Robin: Wow, Thanks for mentioning that. I never knew how the chimes came about.

"The NBC chimes are the notes G-E-C."

Which if you played them at the same time on a piano it would be the musical chord "C"

Many popular songs have been in the key of C. John Lennon's Imagine, The Beatles Let It Be, Elton John (Played many songs in this key) Daniel, Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me.

George Gershwin wrote every song in the key of C. He had piano made that had a special feature by which he could move a long piece a wood in the piano that would change the key. It would work kind of like the capo on a guitar.

The key of C: No sharps no flats. Let us now break into the song Ebony and Ivory.

I know....TMI!!!

Now I know why I think of N.B.C. when I play "Imagine"!

"Rhapsody In Blue" is in the key of C?

I played that song on the piano in my high school jazz lab band Skep, and I do recall it was in the key of C. I especially loved the ending part of the song which is one of it most memorable parts of the song.

It's always fun to segue one song to another especially when they were in the same key.

Flats, sharps and chords? What are those? I only know Guitar Hero notes!


(ps: good stuff in this thread!)

For the geeks: Schematic and photos of the box, by John Schneider, mirrored at Barry Mishkind's OldRadio.Com:

http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/sf/chimes.htm

A more elaborate history, by Michael Shoshani:

http://www.nbcchimes.info/

To show how anal I am, I went to my electronic keyboard and played the notes that were first used. Not knowing the tempo or octive but noting (pun intended) that it all started on the note of G, I decide to play the notes that were in the first link in the last post.

I started on the G above middle C. Played around with a tempo that was eventually used for G-E-C. Would play varying forms of the notes and found a nice "music box" sound that seemed to match pretty closely to what I remember the sound to be.

Maybe I can come up with some kind of rock piano opera using this pattern of notes.

Good Lord I need a life.

I used to work at a station that had been an NBC affiliate back in the '40's -- we had an actual three-note set of the chimes, complete with the "NBC" logo on them, on a shelf in the production studio. We used to try to figure out how complex a song section we could play with only three notes!

What other soound effects have been used local or network for time signals or other purposses.?Imus used a duck quack

"Remember the CBS top of the hour tone?" Look for that phrase half way down the page and you'll find the word "tone" linked with the top of the hour bell sound:

http://www.akdart.com/vtr/vtr4.html

Hey Chris, it's really all one octave, and you probably know that. My point is that using the extremes and tempo changes opens up some doors. So these tones become a frame, instead of the primary focus. Make a bass line, arpeggios, sustained and maybe modulated chords and other framing bits, leaving the main driving notes to...

Be the romantic element that paints a commercial picture over that frame instead of trying to make the frame a picture. Make sense?

Instead of sticking to just the NBC bit, and obvious derivatives that limit your options, mix in other clearly recognizable tones, chimes and such, like characters in a story over time.

Telling the story might involve sequencing them in order of time and significance. At the least, you will have some overall direction to help you resolve the thing musically.

There is a lot more color and texture there to work with, if more audio logos are used.

Additionally, that significance changes over time, so there is some story and form there too you can tap.

>>>George Gershwin wrote every song in the key of C. He had piano made that had a special feature by which he could move a long piece a wood in the piano that would change the key. It would work kind of like the capo on a guitar<<<

Actually, this was Irving Berlin, who had virtually NO formal music training. Also he played practically everything in F-sharp Major, which kept him almost exclusively on the widely-spaced black keys (Okay, I don't understand this, either... The key of C seems MUCH easier to play, to me anyway... Guess Berlin thought differently than I. He was quoted as saying "The notes in this key are "right there under my fingers! The key of "C" is for those who study music!").

Gershwin, on the other hand, had some classical music training before jumping into the songwriting biz.

My Bad. Thanks Rack me. Got them mixed up.

OK, let's see if I have this straight: "Rhapsody In Blue" is not in the key of C because it was Irving Berlin and not George Gershwin who wrote this way?

The National Broadcasting Company was formed on September 9, 1926. It was a corporation owned jointly by GE, RCA, and Westinghouse. The NBC network began broadcasting on November 15 of the same year from studios WEAF in New York City. There was a combined group of nineteen scattered affiliated stations, using more that 3500 circuit miles of telephone wires.

As the number of affiliate stations grew, there was some confusion among the affiliates as to the conclusion of network programming and when the station break should occur on the hour and half-hour. Some sort of coordinating signal was needed to signal the affiliates for these breaks. Three men at NBC were given the task of finding a solution to the problem and coming up with such a coordinating signal. These men were; Oscar Hanson, a former engineer for AT&T, Earnest la Prada, an NBC orchestra leader, and Philip Carlin, an NBC announcer. During the years 1927 and 1928 these men experimented with a seven note sequence of chimes, G-C-F-E-G-C-E, which proved too complicated for the announcers to consistently strike in the correct order, so the sequence was reduced to four notes, G-C- F-E. This was later reduced to the three notes G-E-C, and these three notes were first broadcast on November 29, 1929. The notes were struck at 59 minutes 30 seconds, and 29 minutes 30 seconds past the hour.

The key of C seems MUCH easier to play, to me anyway... Guess Berlin thought differently than I. He was quoted as saying "The notes in this key are "right there under my fingers! The key of "C" is for those who study music!"
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"C" is an easy key to play in for keyboard dudes. However, any pop/rock song can be played in any key...but certain songs just sound better in some keys. A lot of rock and blues tunes (Green Onions, Money, for example) are in the key of "F" because "F" just sounds good. Many, not all, guitar players as a rule don't like to play in "F" because of the long stretches they have to make to play certain chords...they like the key of "E" and "B" as the open strings make for easier fingering. Many keyboard players don't like to play in "B" because it is much harder fingering the notes on certain grooves. But if you are a good player you can play in any key. And most electronic keyboards today have a "transpose" button which enables you to play a song in "B" but use the "C" fingering positions. Easier to play, sounds better. Irving Berlin played and wrote in F# Major because of the "sound" it produced and that was a good key for him to sing in. A great many vocal songs today are written in the key that fits the voice of the singer who will perform the tune. But as I said before, any song can be played in any key. And that's your music lesson for today.

F-Sharp is great!

I can play just enough piano that it's tough to just bang stuff out. Generally have to sequence it first, working through all the notes, then play it back once I'm feeling good about everything.

The beauty of F-Sharp is that many great chord combinations exist on the black keys, with maybe the occasional white ones.

If you are looking to just go free form, explore some sounds, maybe construct a theme or color, this is a great key to just bang around in. Really, if you just try combinations of keys, you are highly likely to get chords that make sense, meaning the free form, looking for musical ideas, themes, colors, or maybe just simple progressions, can often just happen.

I also like the fairly clear division between major and minor chords within the key. With few exceptions, laying into the white keys means entering into minor territory.

IMHO, the "just sounds good" element, linked to some keys, has a lot to do with the harmonic content of the various instruments being played and the vocalist, if any.

Each key has a color to it, that can clash with other things in the piece. Take a distorted guitar, or tuned drum, or synth sound, for example. How those play together, and the notes they produce together can and most often does impact the best overall key for the tune.

Transpose that, and you've got a de-tuned sound, clashing because the harmonics just don't play out the same.

And since we're talking scales the lovely pentatonic scale is widely used in many forms of music including African-Amercian, where many negro spirituals are based on the pentatonic scale.

Amazing Grace is actually based on this kind of scale.

If you really want overload here's a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatonic_scale

G-E-C is you basic non-pentatonic scale.

It's very late, home from a gig and am playing in the church band in the morning.

My grade school music teacher did this. (what was described in the latter part of the wiki)

Great way to explore the structure and form of music, without the heady technical issues the full scale brings to the table.

And on scales, we use the tempered one, so that key changes make sense. With computers today, we should be able to build music with true scales, with real key changes, where the harmonics are precise. Wonder why this isn't done?

And this thing is fun:

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/hearing.html

Get a good set of cans, where you know the response curve and profile your hearing response curve!

An audio mobius strip!

http://asa.aip.org/sound/cd/demo27b.au

Some fun online music tests:

http://jakemandell.com/tonedeaf/

The adaptive pitch test is a good one. It presents you with different pitches, narrowing the gap until you fail consistently.

The beauty of F-Sharp is that many great chord combinations exist on the black keys, with maybe the occasional white ones.
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Waaaay back when I first started playing piano an old time New Orleans blues player said "Stan, if you want to play that vanilla stuff stick with the white keys. When you want to play funky ya moves up to the black keys. And remember, it ain't how many notes you play, it's how you plays 'em and where you puts 'em." Worlds to live by, for sure.

Absolutely true.

KFOG in SF had a foghorn sound they did often!!
what notes are the abc news music?

One of the true personal highlights of my broadcasting days was working at KFOG-FM in SF, when they played "good music". The studios were at the top floor of Ghirardelli Square, overlooking SF bay, the GG Bridge, and Alcatraz Island.

Taking that view in, all by myself in the studio around 3AM, when that KFOG foghorn sounder played is a memory that can't be replaced.

And thanks for bringing it back!

The sound of a fog horn would not be fondly remembered by any of the poor souls who'd endured duty on a lightship.

"Back in the day," KJIB would play a recording they'd made on a sailboat of a bell buoy.

KJIB's bell was the same one that WJIB in Boston used. It played on at :15 and :45 past the hour. Bernie Seitz was the genius behind it. In fact, he built the studios.

The KFOG horn was cool. I have an air check somewhere with the big voiced id guy saying...(FOG HORN SFX)..."From Ghiradelli Square, this is Kaiser Brodcasting's K-F-O-G...K-FOG AT 104-5".

most casinos only play music that is in the key of c


speaking of nbc chimes....."you're on the monitor beacon"


www.monitorbeacon.net

General Electric actually still owns NBC today.

GE doesn't STILL own NBC; they own it again.