Gavin Bryars, the British composer, talks about having his phone go off during one of his own concerts:
I had a choice. I could either open the bag to switch it off, thereby making the phone sound louder, or let it ring in its muffled state, allowing it to stop of its own accord. During that brief moment, I realised I had, after all, composed the (admittedly dreadful) ringtone on the mobile myself and as such was providing a form of obbligato accompaniment that could not fail to be stylistically coherent.Bryars’s full essay appeared today in the London newspaper the Guardian (“My Ringtone Symphony”).