Adésọjí, ọmọ Adebisi, Ololufe Àmàlà

In 1902, Spanish guitarist and composer Francisco Tárrega created Gran Vals, a classical guitar piece containing a melody that would eventually become one of the most recognizable sounds in the world. Widely regarded as a pioneer of modern classical guitar, Tárrega drew inspiration from Frédéric Chopin’s Grande Valse Brillante, never imagining that his composition would become famous more than a century later. In 1992, Nokia featured a short section of Gran Vals in a television advertisement before introducing it as a ringtone on the Nokia 2110 in 1994. Initially called “Grande Valse,” the melody was eventually renamed the “Nokia Tune.” At the height of Nokia’s popularity, the ringtone reportedly played an astonishing 1.8 billion times daily, transforming a simple classical guitar melody into one of the defining sounds of the mobile phone generation.