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| Jean
Hasse |
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From
a seafront apartment in Deal, Jean Hasse makes music. Not just any
music though - these are the beeps and pings that accompany our every
waking hour. Jean is a ring-tone composer. |
Well, that's
a little unfair. For someone who plays almost every instrument, who performs
and is published on both sides of the Atlantic, Jean is a relative rookie
to the ring-tone revolution.
"If
I wrote a string quartet, I wouldn't get this publicity. Ring tones are
not high art and I'm not saying this is great. I'm just trying to share
my music with people," she says.
Listen to
the tones below and see what you think. (You will need RealPlayer)
These ring tones are definitely the choice of the discerning mobile phone
user. While the majority of downloads are a combination of junk jingles
and pop hits, Jean's tunes are unique in that they are composed especially
for your handset.
Jean didn't
even have a mobile phone when the idea came to her to try her hand at
composing ring tones. A
year on and she has a range of tones available for download on the iobox.com
website and plenty more buzzing (and beeping) around in her head.
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| Touch
tone handset |
What attracted
you to ring tones?
"I've been composing since I was a teenager and I enjoy music that
is unusual, that makes me smile. I'm not often satisfied with a long piece
of music and I find ring tones a bit of a challenge, and satisfying"
But music
is in her blood and Jean treats the mobile medium as just another extension
of her musical life: "I can't remember a time when I wasn't playing
the piano" she says. The longest she went without playing was during
a four-month break from studies in Mexico - it nearly drove her mad.
A day in the life >> take a photo
tour
Composing ring tones is not as simple as it may seem. In fact Jean is
just as meticulous with her 20-second sequences of beeps as she is with
her much longer classical compositions.
Room with a view >> photo
tour of Deal
Jean lives right on the seafront in Deal. From her keyboard and computer,
which she flits between, she has an uninterrupted view of the Channel
and, on a good day, of northern France.
"I love
Deal," she says, which might seem funny for someone from Ohio, but
she says the sea air clears her head: "I hear music when I walk along
the seafront, I don't know what I'd do if I had to leave"
What next?
Jean is taking the art of mobile phone ring tones to another level and
has composed the UK's first mobile phone suite - using 10 separate phones
as instruments.
"I began
to think of mobile phones as independent musical instruments in their
own right. I wondered how several phones would sound together and imagined
the variety of textures and colours I could create," she says.
With students
from the Royal Academy of Music, she hopes to perform her ''miniature
suite' to stunned audiences around the land.
A week after
meeting Jean, I spoke to her again and she told me that she had lost her
mobile phone somewhere in London. So, if you have picked up a phone that
plays a rare suite of ring-tones, please return...
profile by Robert Leslie
Listen to more of Jean's music
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