This “creative destruction” began in the ’60s, as did many things that we now both love and regret, and it was initially a spinoff of a project funded by US military agencies. […] Mephistopheles came to Faust in the form of a poodle. After all…in some versions of the story, he cannot enter your house unbidden — you have to invite him in, like a vampire. From Internet Antichrist, a thoughtful piece by David Byrne on the the development of the ARPANET, psychoacoustics research at Bell Labs leading to vocoders and Kraftwerk, the rise of digital recording and transmission, and the possibility of the near-future demise of physical media and risks to personal privacy. The market forces of creative destruction.
Tag: music
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This Creative Destruction Began in the 60s As
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From Endless Loop a Brief History of Chiptunes
From Endless loop: A brief history of chiptunes:
Pressure Cooker was an ambitious exception among its contemporaries. In 1980, most home computer music remained limited to single-voice melodies and lacked dynamic range. Robert “Bob” Yannes, a self-described “electronic music hobbyist,” saw the sound hardware in first-generation microcomputers as “primitive” and suggested that they had been “designed by people who knew nothing about music” (Yannes 1996). In 1981, he began to design a new audio chip for MOS Technology called the SID (Sound Interface Device). In contrast to the kludgy Atari TIA, Yannes intended the SID to be as useful in professional synthesizers as it would be in microcomputers. Later that year, Commodore decided to include MOS Technology’s new SID alongside a dedicated graphics chip in its next microcomputer, the Commodore 64. Unlike the Atari architecture, in which a single piece of hardware controlled both audio and video output, the Commodore machine afforded programmers greater flexibility in their implementation of graphics and sound […]
When I saw this headline linked by Waxy I took it to be an overview of the recent (late 90’s to now) chiptune music craze, but it’s actually a nice little overview of the nearly 30 years old history of writing music on game hardware. Even includes sections on cracktros, the demoscene, and the early advent of trackers, along with some good videos of the relevant technology.
(Photo of the SID chip via Chris Hand)
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Vic Mizzy, RIP
We had a piano when I was a kid, and the only songs I really knew how to play were the ones out of a TV theme song music book. I mostly learned the Vic Mizzy ones, since they were the best (well, the Bill Lava ones were pretty cool, too). Truly the master of the catchy jingle theme. Most folks are commenting on his tunes for the Addams Family (he was the singer, too?) and Green Acres, but he also penned many a Don Knotts film score, along with tv themes for a number of less-successful sitcoms. There’s also the very catchy “In the Middle…In the Middle…In the Middle” street safety song (which has a refrain melody similar to the later “Muppet Show” theme by Sam Pottle), covered by They Might Be Giants on their “No!” kid’s album.
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Walkthrough
“SOUTH”
“EAST”
“OPEN WINDOW”
“ENTER HOUSE”
“WEST”
“GET THE LAMP”
“MOVE THE RUG”
“OPEN THE TRAP DOOR”“LIGHT LAMP”,“D”,“S”,“E”, “GET THE PAINTING”, “N”, “U”, “U”, “GET KNIFE AND ROPE”, “D”, “W”, “OPEN CASE”, “PUT PAINTING IN CASE”, “DROP KNIFE”, “GET SWORD”, “OPEN TRAP DOOR”, “D”, “N”, “KILL TROLL WITH SWORD”, “DROP SWORD”, “E”, “E”, “SE”, “E”, “TIE ROPE TO RAILING”, “CLIMB DOWN ROPE”, “S”, “E”, “GET COFFIN”, “W”, “S”, “PRAY”, “DOUSE LAMP”, “S”, “N”, “E”, “D” TO THE CANYON BOTTOM, “N”, “DROP COFFIN”, “OPEN COFFIN”, “GET SCEPTRE”, “WAVE SCEPTRE”, “LOOK”, “GET GOLD AND COFFIN”, “SW”, “U” TO CANYON VIEW, “NW”, “W”, “ENTER HOUSE AND OPEN BAG” “GET GARLIC”, “W”, “PUT COFFIN, SCEPTRE, AND GOLD IN CASE” “OPEN THE TRAP DOOR”, “AND LIGHT THE LAMP”.
From Walkthrough, the 2nd greatest Zork-based rap song of the past couple of years (Frontalot’s It Is Pitch Dark is still pretty ultimate). And yes, I’m very much looking forward to the upcoming Get Lamp documentary.
(Via a lot of gaming blogs…)
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On “Goo goo g’joob”
One widely circulated tidbit is that Lennon was inspired by James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake while writing the song. This would fit nicely with the Lewis Carroll homage, since Humpty Dumpty figures in Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness masterpiece as well. (Finnegan’s fall from a ladder resonates with the fall of Humpty Dumpty and the Fall of Man.) According to Beatles lore, “goo goo goo joob” are “the last words uttered by Humpty Dumpty before his fall.” This was a popular notion among the conspiracy theorists who were convinced that Paul McCartney had died in a mysterious accident and looked for clues to his demise in Beatles lyrics.
The only problem with the Joycean theory is that “goo goo goo joob” does not actually appear in Finnegans Wake. The closest approximation in Joyce is “googoo goosth,” which doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. There’s also no evidence that Lennon was actually reading Finnegans Wake at the time, so the imprint of Joyce is not nearly as clear-cut as that of Lewis Carroll.
The other tidbit that folks use to tie I Am the Walrus to the Wake, not mentioned here, is that the book’s protagonist Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker / Haroun Childeric Eggeberth / HCE, is described as a walrus of a man, for both his girth and his mustache. And that’s about it. Again, nothing particularly convincing, so I’m glad to see a good debunking. More interesting in this article is the speculation about which came first: “goo goo g’joob” or Simon & Garfunkel’s “coo coo cachoo” (or is it ‘boop oop a doop’)?
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NESynth iPhone app
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Kraftwerk‘s Pocket Calculator on the Nintendo DSi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGUhxgvGb8A
Kraftwerk’s “Pocket Calculator” faithfully played on the Nintendo DSi. There’s a new version of the KORG DS-10 software coming out in September (in Japan, anyhow – here’s hoping that it comes stateside), which will be a must-buy.
(Via 5cience)
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New Treewave EP: 10inch
New free EP ‘10inch’ available for the downloading from Dallas shoegaze/chiptune band Treewave! Haven’t listened to it all yet so I can’t compare it with their outstanding 2004 Cabana+ EP, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt (and you can’t beat the price).
(Via Offworld)
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LEGO NXT Sequencer
A fun LEGO Mindstorms NXT sequencer project from Damien Key of Domabotics. I like the simplicity of this design (and the whirring of the LEGO motor adds something to the sound, almost like the scratchiness of vinyl).
(Via)
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8-bit Animal Collective
Animal Collective’s “My Girls” in 8-bit form. Somehow this works pretty well as a pixellated chiptune song.
(Via)