The SNCF jingle... a powerful combination of just four pitches
It’s one of the most familiar compositions in the world, heard by millions every day, a sonic signifier so powerful that it’s become embedded in national and international consciousness. I’m talking about the musical call-sign of the SNCF rail operator in France, which since 2005 has been the ubiquitous upbeat to platform announcements, arrivals, departures… and delays. It’s the work of the composer and guru of sonic branding Michaël Boumendil. With the possible exception of the four notes at the start of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the four pitches of the SNCF motif are the most powerful, and prevalent, ever conceived.
And in a world of ever-more predictable social and emotional musical manipulation in urban spaces – relaxing classics in the doctor’s waiting room, aggravating classics on the phone as you wait for the queue to diminish, murderously chilled-out classics when you’re at the tube station – Boumendil’s notes are still surprising in what they sound like and what they mean.
The SNCF jingle... so much musical and emotional complexity in just four notes
Sung wordlessly by synthetic female voices, Boumendil’s composition starts like a remix of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and goes on to outline a tetrachord of minor-key melancholy. Seriously. After a leap upwards of an optimistic fifth of C to G, there’s an ache of a semitone to A flat. (Transposed and slightly rearranged, those three notes are the opening of Tristan, with cellos replacing the voices…) But then, there’s a sudden fall in a faster rhythm to E flat, and the grip of C minor is confirmed.
There’s a lot going on musically in this four-note collection, but that analysis doesn’t account for why this tune has made it into the psyche of so many travellers and tourists, and why, after more than 20 years, it hasn’t become a sonic annoyance but instead is a beloved icon of the commute, and as treasured a souvenir as an Eiffel Tower snow-globe. It even inspired Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour to write his song ‘Rattle That Lock’, in which the tune becomes an anthemic danceathon.
The SNCF jingle... anticipation and ambiguity
The secret, Boumendil says, is its ambiguity: instead of offering up a jollified arpeggio – the musical equivalent of ‘happy happy, joy joy’ as Ren and Stimpy used to say – as you set off from the Gare du Nord for another wonderful day at work, the four-note motif offers the sense of a journey about to be begun, a feeling of anticipation… and even of consolation in the melancholy undertone of that C minor feel that says ‘Ben ouais, you’re en retard and you’ve missed your connection, but… c’est la vie!’
In the UK, we have nothing to compete with this miracle of micro-composition. From Tokyo to Bergen, each tram stop and tube station has its own specially composed sonic ident, but only in France does a single chime sonically bind the nation together. Altogether now: ‘Ba – da – bada!’ Oh, and a croissant and coffee while you’re at it. Merci.
