Did You Know On-Hold Music Was Invented Accidentally?

Sometimes, it’s annoying, and sometimes, you kind of get into it if it’s cool enough with a nice beat.

That on-hold music is a part of your life, and for the most part, you hope it ends within a couple of minutes, but alas, you know that’s not often the case.

At least it exists, though, right? I’d like to think that if on-hold music was accidentally invented, someone would have come up with the concept. Complete silence would drive you even more crazy.

According to the Weird Facts website, you can thank a loose wire and a faulty phone line connection at a factory for the fluke that turned into on-hold music.

A loose wire touching the steel frame of an office building caused it to act as a giant radio receiver, allowing callers to hear music from local radio stations while they waited on hold.

While dealing with the loose wire, the factory owner clearly had a lightbulb moment. If he was annoyed and frustrated in the beginning, that ended quickly after he realized what he had accidentally discovered.

His name is Alfred Levy, and when he found out the technical glitch was allowing his customers to hear music from radio stations while they were on hold, he knew this was something to try and cash in on.

According to the Slate website, before the 1960s, there was only silence while you waited for a human to get on the phone. Then along came Alfred, who took the idea to the United States Patent Office to get an application for his Telephone Hold Program System.

Welcome to the evolution of on-hold music as we know it today.

According to Slate, Alfred’s invention didn’t have competition until the 1980s. It was called Messaging on Hold, and it played music with a sultry voice interrupting to promote the business or company for a few seconds before returning to music.