That said, the history of the mobile and public production of sounds and noise is not a phenomenon of our time, and neither was it ushered in by the Walkman or MP3 player. Flutes, drums, kettledrums and trumpets accompanied generals and princes centuries ago when they marched onto the battlefield or rode into a city. Processions precipitated the singing of litanies and playing of psalm melodies on the streets. Military marches aided the movement of masses of soldiers. The primary function of Jew’s harps, harmonicas, bells, guitars and travel guitars was to make noise in the open air, and only rarely were they used in the hope of producing more than loud notes or half-decent chords. For a time this tradition of making noise in public almost seemed to have been forgotten and was only perpetuated by the notorious bongo drum players in the park and street musicians. Since the invention of portable radios, radio cassette recorders and ghetto blasters and their heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, people have been carrying their music around with them and adding a suitable soundtrack to their lives, yet they always looked to music made by others.

All that changed with the iPhone. The digital device that can do almost anything and which entered our lives a few years ago naturally also offers space for our entire music collection, which we can carry around with us and play noisily whenever we want, with which we can shut ourselves off from the outside world and motivate ourselves to go jogging. Yet at the same time it is a storage medium for countless “apps”, with which we can forge a link to the long tradition of independent creative sound production in the public space. There are countless small programs or applications that do nothing other than produce one or more digital sounds. Desk Bell & Buzzer, for example, provides the sounds you need to organize a TV show, should you need to, with the professional bell sound for a right answer and dull buzz for a wrong one. There are dozens of apps that copy the sound of an electric shaver, so that users can jokingly pretend to shave whenever they like with their cell phone. Otohime apps make sounds ranging from flushing water to bagpipes playing and are popular in Japan for drowning out embarrassing sounds that might occur during a trip to the bathroom. The Moo app makes this sound when you turn your cell phone over. Drum Kitchen creates rhythmic sounds with virtual kitchen appliances. i-Horn generates horn and trumpet sounds that push the device’s speakers to their limits. NervSounds provides noises that make you cringe, such as fingernails scraping along a blackboard or a fork scraping across a plate. Ever new sound apps offer thousands of sounds at the drop of a hat: street noises such as police sirens or the sound of a truck driving by, human noises like babies screaming, sneezing and passing wind. Not to mention the sounds of sheep being shorn, a trip to the dentist, spraying something with a spray can or opening a bottle of wine. The sounds of chainsaws and associated massacres. Computer sounds, forgotten sounds, movie quotes and the sound repertoires of Star Trek and Star Wars, from a spaceship door opening to the lightsaber. In short, all the sounds we need on a day-to-day basis and previously had with us not nearly enough.