SKGB
Offline
Godzilladelph

Usually people stand around and stare at me akwardly. Some people take pictures, some people take videos. Some people yell shit at me and I gotta be all, "Goddammit I'm supposed to heckle you, not the other way around assholes!" I jump around like an idiot. Sometimes, afterwards a guy will me money.

Also, I pulled out my gameboy the second day of "electronic ensemble" at college, and everyone was like, WTF AWESOME (too my surprise). At the end of the year, we had to play a concert. Everyone had macs and midi interfaces, I had a gameboy and a feedback looping mixer. I was the rhythm section. Much positive feedback!  A+, would play again.

tl; dr: play chiptunes in an academic setting, you will get mad bitchezzzzzzzzz

Frostbyte
Offline
Cooshinator wrote:
Frostbyte wrote:

And it's not easy to make if you're gonna spend time on it and do it well.

Cooshinator wrote:

the Skrillex kind

lol

Dos
Offline
Portland

It really depends, I've had both extremes.
People in my Electronic music class thought it was the coolest thing ever, and wanted me to explain how they can get lsdj on a flashcart and stuff...
Most the time people get shocked i'm writing music on a game console.  They don't react this way If I bring up the commodore 64 rather than GB though.
I've also met plenty of people who don't think its music, or are agitated by the tones, or ones that wouldn't let me play at their open mics. Etc.

thursdaycustoms
Offline
Cleveland, OH

90% of reactions I get are like:
"That's tight"
10% are:
"interesting..."

Reteris
Offline
̛̛̩̥̩̥̩̥̅ ̥⎬̛̛̛̛̛̥̥̩̥̩̩

Yeah dude it's super easy to make skrillex dubstep right skrillex is no big deal I obviously produce dubstep and know what I'm talking about

Reteris
Offline
̛̛̩̥̩̥̩̥̅ ̥⎬̛̛̛̛̛̥̥̩̥̩̩
Cooshinator wrote:

I always tend to get good reactions when showing people my music. Once on the way back from a marching band competition, a good friend of mine was talking about dubstep (the Skrillex kind) and I told him it was stupid easy to make. I pulled out my gameboy and whipped up a stereotypical brostep jam in 5 minutes, only for him to go crazy about how awesome it was. He called me the "master of dubstep"

Oh my god this is just too good

bryface
Offline
vancouver, canada

when i visited NY for blipfest earlier this year absolutely none of the 6 or 7 non-chip friends that i met up with had the kind of reaction i was hoping for when i told them why i was there.

i tried to be consistent in my description -- something like, "i'm going to a music festival where the artists use and hack old hardware to make music".  that was the most concise and gentle way that i could think of describing it, and i tried to highlight the universal appeal of a music festival.

each of their reactions was one of puzzlement (i guess they were still trying to piece it together in their head), combined with one of:
- it's one of those obscure nerdy things you like i guess
- is that like some kind of hardware swap meet or something?
- you flew out to new york for this?

in vancouver, my experience is that public opinion of chipmusic tends to get lumped into the same category as the stuff of Fringe Festivals, which is less "curious intersection of nerd/tech/music culture" (which is fine with me), and more "crazy psychopath deviants whose art purely exists for sideshow and murdering".  which is unfortunate, because there are a lot of people here who jive with the first category because of all the tech and gaming companies here.  if there are more people with that interest, i haven't crossed paths with them.

Last edited by bryface (Dec 16, 2011 7:40 am)

bryface
Offline
vancouver, canada
SKGB wrote:

Also, I pulled out my gameboy the second day of "electronic ensemble" at college, and everyone was like, WTF AWESOME (too my surprise). At the end of the year, we had to play a concert. Everyone had macs and midi interfaces, I had a gameboy and a feedback looping mixer. I was the rhythm section. Much positive feedback!  A+, would play again.

tl; dr: play chiptunes in an academic setting, you will get mad bitchezzzzzzzzz

that's pretty awesome that your ensemble was so open to your contribution.  seeing that it was an "electronic ensemble" though, i'd think that you were fortunate that your gear wasn't that far a cry from what they had. 

compare that to, say, a high school band -- can you imagine the music teacher holding auditions for 1st, 2nd and 3rd gameboy?

godinpants
Offline
hardcore, Australia
Cooshinator wrote:

-When I played little-scale's "Error Repeat" in front of my language arts class, several people said "It sounds like Space Invaders" (Which doesn't have music)

Space invaders has music.

Jellica
Offline
England

I'm gay because I make music with a Game Boy.

4mat
Offline

don't call it chipmusic for a start.

Chainsaw Police
Offline
Sydney, NSW
SKGB wrote:

play chiptunes in an academic setting, you will get mad bitchezzzzzzzzz

I did this once.

One dude thought I was holding an iPod in a Gameboy casing. Another thought it was a DS.

neutral

But hey, it got me decent marks on my report card.

roboctopus
Offline
Madison, Alabama
VCMG wrote:

The only special response I've ever gotten was when I played some Roboctopus tracks at a party. One guy came up to me and complained about playing "nerdy video game music" and said that chiptune isn't music. And then we got into this big argument about the definition of music. Fun times.

That's funny.  I like to imagine I avoid a lot of standard VGM music conventions, but I guess to some people it's just a bunch of beeps.

I have had exchanges like this:
"But you're not really playing anything." 
To which I say, "But I composed everything." 
Confused, contemplative pause.  "So, it's not real music, right? Cause you're not playing an instrument."

Tetrasaurus
Offline
Germany/Florida

I was doing some busking in Frankfurt, Germany, and alot of people would stop and watch, then get on with their day. A few of them would ask questions, but I dont know german so I couldnt answer them.

eme7h
Offline
México, DF.
roboctopus wrote:

I have had exchanges like this:
"But you're not really playing anything." 
To which I say, "But I composed everything." 
Confused, contemplative pause.  "So, it's not real music, right? Cause you're not playing an instrument."

"You got technicians here, makin' noise. No one is a musician. They are not artist because nobody can play the guitar."

SKGB
Offline
Godzilladelph
bryface wrote:
SKGB wrote:

Also, I pulled out my gameboy the second day of "electronic ensemble" at college, and everyone was like, WTF AWESOME (too my surprise). At the end of the year, we had to play a concert. Everyone had macs and midi interfaces, I had a gameboy and a feedback looping mixer. I was the rhythm section. Much positive feedback!  A+, would play again.

tl; dr: play chiptunes in an academic setting, you will get mad bitchezzzzzzzzz

that's pretty awesome that your ensemble was so open to your contribution.  seeing that it was an "electronic ensemble" though, i'd think that you were fortunate that your gear wasn't that far a cry from what they had. 

compare that to, say, a high school band -- can you imagine the music teacher holding auditions for 1st, 2nd and 3rd gameboy?

LOL oh man, that reminds me, Me, Chipocrite, An0va, Animalstyle and whoever else wants to join in were considering creating a gameboy orchestra.

@Chainsaw Police word!