Motorola's phones has changed its ringtone formats several times over the years. This is one reason why some of its users become frustrated when trying to download free ringtones from the Internet. They discover that some of the music available from the websites aren't compatible with their phone, or they see an error message even if they're technically downloading a Motorola tune.

However, Motorola's keypress format bypasses most of that confusion, since the keypress sequences only have to be inputted into the phone's Melody Composer. 'Wait a minute!' you cry, panic building, 'Compose? I don't know how to compose!' Relax. Even if you don't consider yourself a budding Beethoven, many websites carry ready made 'music sheets' that you simply have to key in. You don't even have to understand the Melody Composer, you just have to copy the information and let the phone's software do the rest.

Unsure of how to use your Motorola's keypress format? Your phone will have a manual, but for a more detailed explanation, you can download a much thicker and comprehensive guide from their website. In a nutshell, you will key in symbols that correspond to music notes. If you want to compose your own music, these are the important symbols.

A length or duration of the note is represented by a 0, a half note by 1, a quarter note is 2222, and a sixteenth note is 44. The type of note is set by typing in a number between 2 and 4 in various combinations (e.g., A is 2,B is 22, C is 222, d is 3, etc.) To set the octave, type 00 followed by an asterisk (*). The pitch also requires its own set of symbols: a sharp note is executed by keying in three zeros (000) while a flat is four zeros (0000). To set the volume, press 8 followed by the number 1 to 15.

There are some differences in the Motorola code than with RTTTL and other keypress formats. For example, it's a lot shorter. The sixteenth and thirty second notes are just one digit long, and it can handle flats unlike the standard RTTTL. It also indicates the sharp or flat before the note rather than after.

One of the strongest features of Motorola's format is that you don't have to retype a whole section of ringtone codes for parts in the song that repeat themselves. Just insert the section inside a parenthesis then type in how many times you want it to repeat. This is very handy for songs that have a running leitmotif or a common beat. It also lets you stay in the Motorola keypress maximum character count (you can only have 120 characters) and still have very complex songs.

Motorola's keypress formats allow its users to enjoy a wide variety of ringtones despite the problems they may encounter downloading music for other phone models. While the code does take a while to master (so you may need to practice before you actually make an original piece of music), the feature has encouraged many Motorola users and aficionados to create available music sheets for quick download.