Like the piano, the typewriter also contains a system of levers that converts the small movement of a fingertip on a key into a long movement — in this case the movement of the raised type on the end of the type bar. As the typewriter is always played fortissimo, a simple system of levers suffices to connect the key to the type.
For the proper reading experience, play the music from this track
while reading on.
The use of the typewriter as a percussion instrument in music. Other noises besides the clicking of keystrokes may be used, such as the carriage return bell, calculators, cash registers, or keyboards (the ones you connect to a computer, not the musical ones). The important bit is that the non-musical object being employed produce a staccato (i.e., a passage of notes is played in a curt, abruptly disconnected manner).
Perhaps not as common nowadays, since typewriters have been replaced by quieter computer keyboards. However, the faster you type on a keyboard, the harder you're likely to hit the keys, and thus the louder it's likely to be. You'd need to be pretty good to make music with it, but it might be possible.
Sub-Trope of Everything Is an Instrument. Often overlaps with Rapid-Fire Typing. Might be part of a Serendipitous Symphony.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Violet Evergarden: The original soundtrack includes the sounds of Violet's typewriter since becoming an Auto-Memory Doll is the catalyst for her character development.
- Yotsuba&!: A variation with a keyboard is used in the first image album.
Films — Animation
- Frozen: Anna knocking on Elsa's door and imitating a clock's rhythmic sound are used as percussion in "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman".
- Mary and Max: Whilst Max typewrites a letter for his penpal, his clicking serves as the percussion for Baroque Classical Music violins playing extradiegetically.
- Tarzan: When the young gorillas discover the camp and improvise a musical sequence, one of them is fooling around with a typewriter until they discover typing in the keys can create a rhythm.
Terk: "Ding!" I love that part!
Films — Live-Action
- 9 to 5: For the title song (although the sound is actually made by Dolly Parton's fingernails on a table).
- Amélie: The track "Pas si simple" starts with a typewriter as the lead-in to the rest of the music, and keeps the rhythm pattern in the background.
- Atonement: Used as part of the soundtrack.
- Brazil: The theme for Central Services underscores the bouncy instrumentals of Aquarela do Brasil with a typewriter. This proved popular enough for the track to become a frequent example of Recycled Trailer Music.
- Populaire: The trailer (a French Romantic Comedy with typewriting competitions as background) is rhythmed by a carriage return bell sound.
- The Producers: The prelude to the song 'I Wanna Be A Producer' has the accountants of the firm Bloom works in lamenting their lot in life, punctuated with the clicks from their calculators.
Live-Action TV
- Are You Being Served?: Used both as the base for the theme tune and occasionally as an interstitial sound between scenes.
- A Case for Two: The start of the series' Electronic Music theme is played on a typewriter.
- Friends: Ross does this kind of music with his keyboard.
Music
- All Girl Summer Fun Band: "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Troublemaker".
- Leroy Anderson: Perhaps most famously, "The Typewriter", which has been used as the Theme Tune to BBC Radio 4's The News Quiz. The typewriter used in live performance is a specially modified one with all but two keys removed to prevent jamming. The piece is so fast-paced that the skill set required is that of not a typist, but a drummer.
- The Boston Typewriter Orchestra is an improvisational percussion group that uses nothing but typewriters.
- Kate Bush: Though the original version of "Army Dreamers" did not rely on this, a symphonic tribute cover from the Gothenburg Symphony in Sweden replaced the sampled gun clocks of the original with a typewriter for her 40th-anniversary.
- Marian Call: "I'll Still Be a Geek After Nobody Thinks It's Chic", aka "Nerd Anthem".
- Nick Cave: The opening rhythm to "No Pussy Blues" by Grinderman.
- Jean Cocteau added typewriter percussion to the ballet composition "Parade", by Erik Satie (known for his gentle, contemplative style).
- Thomas Dolby uses typewriter sounds (keys and bell) in the track "Dissidents" from his second album, The Flat Earth.
- Document: "Exhuming McCarthy" starts with the sound of a manual one, played by Michael Stipe. The typewriter used is in fact the same one that Stipe wrote the band's lyrics with at the time; he'd switch over to an electronic typewriter for Green and eventually a computer from Automatic for the People onward.
- Brian Eno uses some typewriter percussion on his song "China, My China". Preceded by the lines:
These poor girls are such fun
They know what God gave them their fingers for
(To make percussion over solos) - Bryan Ferry's song "Kiss and Tell" (from his 1987 album Bete Noire) begins with frantic typewriting as percussion.
- Flying Lizards: The 1979 cover of Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)".
- Gorillaz: Interspersed with the harmonic bits, there is typewriting noise-like percussion in "We Are Happy Landfill".
- Guster's "All the Way Up to Heaven" and "Barrel of a Gun".
- The Guess Who: The percussion of "One Way Road to Hell" includes quick typewriting noise starting after the first set of stanzas.
- In Spe: The album Typewriter Concerto in D by Estonian prog-rock band.
- The Lovin' Spoonful: Midway through the song "Money", cash register noises accompany the rhythm. After the stranza ends, a chink is heard.
- Madonna: "Words".
- Olivia Newton-John: "Queen of the Publication", from her album Soul Kiss, starts with the sound of women typing stuff on typewriters. Soon enough, a staccato melody is introduced.
- The Olivia Tremor Control: A suite of songs titled "Green Typewriters" is on the album Dusk at Cubist Castle, and the sounds of typewriters can be heard in a few of the sections.
- Dolly Parton: "9 to 5". She made the sound by clicking her fingernails together.
- Pearl Jam: On the hidden track "Writer's Block" from 2000's Binaural, Eddie Vedder can be heard repeatedly mashing his typewriter keys.
- Poor Tree: The Winnipeg band incorporates typewriters into its music. Two or three members would type a poem while reading it, interlocking the lines, words, and sounds.
- Regina Spektor: "Lady".
- R.E.M.'s "Exhuming McCarthy" starts with the sounds of a typewriter.
- Jill Sobule: "My Chair", also known as "Office-Chair Charm", begins with the sound of people typing on keyboards. The rhythm is created by short bursts of typing followed by brief pauses.
- Yann Tiersen: The multi-instrumentalist composer has used the typewriter as a percussion instrument in a number of his compositions, notably "Pas si simple" on his 1996 album Rue des Cascades.
- Tom Tom Club: The clacking keys of a typewriter open their 1981 single "Wordy Rappinghood".
Theatre
- Chess: In "Embassy Lament", the embassy workers type stuff at the rhythm of the song after each chorus.
- How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying: After the boss reiterates that "A Secretary Is Not a Toy" during the eponymous song, the male workers enter the office to visit the working secretaries. The next verses are underlined by the women's keystroke hitting and marching sounds.
- Merrily We Roll Along: During the bridge of "Opening Doors", there's a scene of Charly using a typewriter. The typing and subsequent chink sounds go along the rhythm of the song.
- Thoroughly Modern Millie: In "The Speed Test", the stenographers, sitting at desks, are only pretending to type while actually tap-dancing to mimic the typing noises.
Video Games
- Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam uses typewriter noises in "Welcome to the Lakitu Info Center!" to underline the fact that it plays in a newsroom.
- Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors has a level that aurally imitates Leroy Anderson's "The Typewriter" except as an arcade shooter instead of a typewriter.
Visual Novels
- The Great Ace Attorney: Fitting to the era they're set in, the two first installments feature typewriter sounds in various parts of their soundtrack, most notably the leitmotif of the second game's Case 3 culprit.
Western Animation
- Animaniacs: In "Temporary Insanity" (where the Warners take over for Mr. Plotz's secretary), Yakko does this with a non-existent typewriter.