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Earth

Thank you Bit Shifter and breakphase but I wanted to say too many things and without having the necessary language skills. It's nice that you had the right mindset to see through it.

You made me try again smile

Basically I stand with those that think the punk similarity to be real.
Not so much about the music in itself it's more about the role that these kind of cultural movements ( punk, chipmusic, diy, etc..) play in the society.

This ideas are already here, several posts, let's take for example thegostservar's observation (harmony, dissonance). It's large enough, it's about the relationship between the musician and the society or, even better to my goals, between the musicians (as a group, one specific group, one scene, one genre) and the others, all the others.

With a similar perspective in mind I guess we can safely say that the punk advent brought a certain "dissonant taste", for example to the English society. I was a little kid  then and wasn't there, but it has been described to me like a working class movement, a bottom-up type of movement. Make sense to me.

Thirty years later a different group of people started to look at their old toys with new eyes and instead of throwing them away like any good citizen... you know the drill.
This is a gross approximation of what actually happened, I know, but I need it to point out a few things:

1) A deceptively simple act like choosing one tool over another could be, today, as dissonant and fascinating as for punk was, I don't know... growing an eccentric hair style.

That is related to power relationships of the society.
A dissonant movement to play his role, to be fascinating, has to bite somewhere.
Power relationships are favorite targets, they are based over many things: brute force, symbols, media..etc. Coexist mixed in various ways in different societies in different times and they have a huge role in shaping people's behavior.

Now, I don't see any punk air cut put up that much of a scandal in a wester city today.
There are places where using old hardware is nothing to write about because it is their regular way of doing and thinking.

In a more "values" oriented society a bigger part of its power relationship are based upon certain symbols or more upon authoritative figures like the Pope, the President, the Queen...  But these relationships change, relatively fast. Some groups of people come up with new ways to superimpose their willing to the others, elites change and also "dissonant" movements, as reactions, have to change too.

You know where I'm going, it's been phrased before as the "anti-consumerism" aspect.
It already gave us good fruits like small shops, different little-scale economics, new relationships. We don't want to underestimate this, this is biting, it's one part of the role. It's biting where it hurts, power relationships.

2) Different groups of people in different times can play the same role.
That is to be expected, it'd better be. Societies evolve, people too.
Roles, instead, look to be much slower changing.

Do we really have to know all that stuff?
Well at least, in this topic, that is a possible answer. 

So, playing the same role, how that sounds?
Sounded weird to me, that much I know, like puppets.
Social facts transcend every single one of us and they can be so strong you can't do anythings but to comply. It is who we are after all, social animals.
On a more positive side we are a special kind of animals, supposedly clever.
Social facts are not always so strong and I think that oftentimes we, as single individuals, can choose our roles and how to use them.
These punk, chipmusic, diy... related roles smells a lot like the kind you choose for yourself.

Merry christmas, love you all.

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merry xmas yerself >:)

when the scene is ready to stand up and be political and idealistic i'm ready to be the part of the post-punky nuclear-holocaust, global-transcorp obsessed commie half of the movement. fuckin folks spent a good few years memin it up and talking down strong opinions about chiptune as drama, perhaps cos there were so many kids involved, no malice zo, who cares

can we make demozines and get fucking noisy with handheld composition/blockading devices and alert each other to local shitheads who needs protesting now

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IL, US
extreme zan-zan-zawa-veia wrote:

merry xmas yerself >:)

when the scene is ready to stand up and be political and idealistic i'm ready to be the part of the post-punky nuclear-holocaust, global-transcorp obsessed commie half of the movement. fuckin folks spent a good few years memin it up and talking down strong opinions about chiptune as drama, perhaps cos there were so many kids involved, no malice zo, who cares

can we make demozines and get fucking noisy with handheld composition/blockading devices and alert each other to local shitheads who needs protesting now

word

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Earth

What?
You felt threatened by communists talking to you and your friends for years about "chiptune as drama" ( sounds exactly  like my previous post, isn't it?) and felt the urge to alert the others.
Oh my.... this is huge!

I'm speechless....
Sorry sad

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IL, US

you have that backwards, he said he'd want to join the communist/anti-capitlist resistance, if it were actually part of the scene.. he's right about the fact that lots of people in this scene tend to dismiss anything resembling someone expressing a strong opinion on pretty much anything as "drama", most of them would rather just post memes over and over

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Earth

" fuckin folks spent a good few years memin it up and talking down strong opinions about chiptune as drama, perhaps cos there were so many kids involved"

Sorry again, but I didn't know any of that.
Must have been horrible reading similar things here and recollect all that time, years with those folks insisting to you with the same strong opinions.

Believe me you are safe now, this is a forum, a virtual place were people share ideas within boundaries.
Accusing someone you no nothing about and who doesn't know you, of strange intentions towards kids, well that's odd. Right?
And just a bit outside these boundaries.

And, btw, the metaphor I used was the kind "society as drama" and chiptune as an actor maybe.
So next time you don't understand or don't agree with something don't be afraid, it's OK.

Last edited by Ermangaver (Dec 25, 2016 6:20 am)

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São Paulo, Brazil

lol @ someone patronizing zan-zawa-veia.

that's drama enough for a xmas morning.

jesus wept.

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Earth

"You have that backwards": I'm starting to think you're right...

Well if that the case, zan-zawa-veia sorry not about frighten you but about misunderstanding  you.

What a mess! smile

Last edited by Ermangaver (Dec 25, 2016 5:04 pm)

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been using combination of punk and chip tunes for awhile. I like that chip tune minimum aesthetics. I even do minimum tuning using the raw vocaloid engine as aesthetic. which vocaloid community dislikes. They really big in high produce sound to even over produce sounds over there.  Problem is that still learning how to  make music. So some of latest songs my melodies are whack. only one sound being  I found that distorted guitar can harmonized well with square waves. punk use what you got on a budget. chip tunes start by people use what they had.

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been using combination of punk and chip tunes for awhile. I like that chip tune minimum aesthetics. I even do minimum tuning using the raw vocaloid engine as aesthetic. which vocaloid community dislikes. They really big in high produce sound to even over produce sounds over there.  Problem is that still learning how to  make music. So some of latest songs my melodies are whack. only one sound being  I found that distorted guitar can harmonized well with square waves. punk use what you got on a budget. chip tunes start by people use what they had.

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Brazil

I think chipmusic has a certain A E S T H E T I C as nostalgia. Then VAPORWAVE came and just buried chipmusic with another kind of nostalgia (and I dunno why nobody came to label it as new punk).

Is it "punk"?
Cause honestly, complementing what zzzv said, we absolutely never transgressed or did anything political or whatsoever. We can say chipmusic BORROWED from punk the DIY, even if we lost some of it today. And I cant see anything else. Cause there's no need to be anything else. That's the beauty in it. We don't need the label "punk", even if you do some kind of music which is similar to that style of music. But starshine said better than me.

Starshine wrote:

Personally, I think the connection comes from both the D.I.Y. aspect, the musical/artistic limitations, and the community associated with it.
...or we're all just sad nerds who just wanna be cool...

And that's why I'm still here doing stuff with my portable videogames. I don't say we are sad nerds, but I'll come back later on that.

Anti-consumerism? I don't know about that. I never saw that anywhere in the chipscene (but maybe I'm blind). Maybe an ecological conscience, but wasnt that proeminet. I think that is just the times we live in. It was different 40 years ago, as it was different 10 yrs ago. People like videogames and I think this links with the next subject

Rebellion? I mean, as Breakphase wrote

breakphase wrote:

I'd also like to suggest to you the possibility that rebellion is already encoded within chipmusic

I say it's not. It's more about reviving and modifying past memories than rebellion. It's like molding and reframing what you used to listen as a kid. I don't know about everyone, but I grew listening to VGM more than what was on television or radio or wtv. That's not rebellious at all. That's actually my status quo. And here I link with "sad nerds", which I don't think we are at all. It's just different and "new".

Also, is there rebellion in our days? Isn't it different now? Are we in check with the times we live in? I have no idea how to deal with that actually cause I know Im alienated from that in a way.
I wasn't from the punk scene here, but I did studied the beginnings of punk at my town (as in academically, see how 1337 i am). And as I say that, I just think how many here are from poor families and from a worker background, cause, cmon, who had money to buy videogames? I got poorer as I got off from my parents house and I got lucky to even have a graduation from a university. And then if you see who started to make punk after the Ramones, specially here, was the poorer kids from the peripheries of cities.

I say we are "garbage men (not a lot of women, though). We reutilize old devices, and that's awesome. We give life to stuff which people tend to throw away cause it's old.
My music isn't even 8bit enough anymore, so I dunno if i'm blabbing.
Also we do so different genres using little toys and programs etc
Love you guys.

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Earth
Subway Sonicbeat wrote:

On Rebellion
I say it's not. It's more about reviving and modifying past memories than rebellion. It's like molding and reframing what you used to listen as a kid. I don't know about everyone, but I grew listening to VGM more than what was on television or radio or wtv. That's not rebellious at all. That's actually my status quo. And here I link with "sad nerds", which I don't think we are at all. It's just different and "new".

Ok, I would like to communicate that I cannot possible presuppose all of your motivations for making chipmusic. I don't know your story, except when I do.

I'm trying to examine chipmusic as maybe an anthropologist or something. I think the behavior around it, and the aesthetics of it, are interesting.

You seem to think that chipmusic is about nostalgic reclamation. Taking things from the past and making them different. Why? Why would someone do that? Why not live in the NOW? HELLO! It's 2017. Not 1986. Your living in the past man. Why don't you make some Dubstep?

My point, to try and be brief, is that chipmusic -- whatever your specific motivations -- is counter to mainstream values. The acquisition of equipment. The composition, done in bare bones minimal UI. The diy approach to everything. Making art and small-scale commerce with the e-waste of a bygone capitalist boom. The simplicity of the music. (It's not simple you fool! It's endlessly complex! Yes it is simple; it's a friggin SID Chip!)

same guy wrote:

I wasn't from the punk scene here, but I did studied the beginnings of punk at my town (as in academically, see how 1337 i am). And as I say that, I just think how many here are from poor families and from a worker background, cause, cmon, who had money to buy videogames? I got poorer as I got off from my parents house and I got lucky to even have a graduation from a university. And then if you see who started to make punk after the Ramones, specially here, was the poorer kids from the peripheries of cities.

It's interesting to think about the class issues around chiptune. Obviously, in the 80s only rich kids could make it, but now, this is the music of the people. It's dirt cheep. But we don't have a history of political speech. Punk is empowering to poor kids. That doesn't mean chiptune can't be made to appeal to this group, but certainly the natural vibe of chiptune is like, armchair, easy listening, leisure music. Right? So yeah you're kind of right.

But the thing is, it's quite natural to subvert conservative media for radical purposes. Many of us make music that is quite shocking because it comes from old video game systems.

Another example of this is Techno, which evolved in part from euro-armchair music, like Kraftwerk. which is weird.

Anyway, in conclusion, I think chiptune is quite subversive as a movement, even if we don't mean to be. Thank you. In high.

I love you guys

I...love you too...

Last edited by breakphase (Jan 29, 2017 6:39 pm)

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Brazil
breakphase wrote:

I'm trying to examine chipmusic as maybe an anthropologist or something. I think the behavior around it, and the aesthetics of it, are interesting.

You seem to think that chipmusic is about nostalgic reclamation. Taking things from the past and making them different.

My point, to try and be brief, is that chipmusic -- whatever your specific motivations -- is counter to mainstream values.

Guess you have a big point here! This makes sense to me. A lot. Maybe I was seeing from another angle.
But hey, Im not the guy who tries to be right whatever, I agree with you here and say I was wrong on that one. It is rebellion if I want change, right? Sometimes I end up trying to be devil's advocate and then I'm wrong. Otherwise we would all be rich and famous. Just a different kind of rebellion.

But then I ask: What are we rebelling against? I'm definetly going to think about that in the next few days.

breakphase wrote:

But the thing is, it's quite natural to subvert conservative media for radical purposes. Many of us make music that is quite shocking because it comes from old video game systems.

Anyway, in conclusion, I think chiptune is quite subversive as a movement, even if we don't mean to be.

And again, food for thought. Cause I experience this every time I play live. And now I do techno.
Maybe I was biased with my own world view and whatever and am not seeing what's the true nature of what I do. This sounds weird but I do need to rethink what am I doing with my music. Cause I think we should be even more subversive.

Thanks for the insights! I'm not high, wish i was

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Vienna

the thing is we are followers of a global chip cult.
goto80 wrote a great article on the issue, it's worth reading.
https://chipflip.wordpress.com/2015/10/ … chip-sect/

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Brunswick, GA USA

TIL somebody still makes dubstep in 2017.

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Earth
chunter wrote:

TIL somebody still makes dubstep in 2017.

Sorry I don't know what the the 2017 equivalent is. I'm think  it's just all Trap, everywhere. See I don't even know what to rebel against.

Last edited by breakphase (Jan 30, 2017 4:20 am)