I did it; I hope you post your findings. I also hope that findings point towards chipmusic being interesting as a medium of music rather than just nostalgia. I didn't really play a ton of older games, and even if I did I doubt the nostalgia factor would hold up too long in music choices for me.
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Tokyo, Japan
Jay Tholen wrote:
I wasn't alive for most of the 80's (b. 1987...) but I have a weird sense of nostalgia for 80s culture. I think it had a lot to do with being raised in a not-very-wealthy family so we were always behind the tech curve by 5ish years. Got a NES when the SNES came out, etc. We still don't have cable or broadband here. (thank God for friendly neighbors...)
Oh yeah, I wasn't meaning to be critical of it, it just feels like culture moves so fast now. Going back to my home town in England a few years ago and seeing kids aged 15 or 16 wearing "Kurt RIP 1994 " shirts was a bit odd. Also, I guess with so much culture now being digital, movies or books or music aren't quite so tied to a particular era any more.
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BOSTON
spacetownsavior wrote:
BR1GHT PR1MATE wrote:LOL AT 25+
thats some thin demographics
again, we're not so much concerned with age. we're just assuming that if you're over 25 you've been alive to see/hear/play on most of the technology that chiptune is made on. we're not doing an exhaustive demographic study -- we're just trying to see if you were alive at the same time these old game consoles were being sold. the data doesn't really need any resolution higher than that, so we just never put it in, because even if we added more categories for stuff like 25-30, 30-40, 45+, we'd just lump them all together under the category "has been around for old video game systems" anyway!
so chill out guys we're not calling you old sheesh
/OLD MAN RAGE
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Westfield, NJ
BR1GHT PR1MATE wrote:
spacetownsavior wrote:again, we're not so much concerned with age. we're just assuming that if you're over 25 you've been alive to see/hear/play on most of the technology that chiptune is made on. we're not doing an exhaustive demographic study -- we're just trying to see if you were alive at the same time these old game consoles were being sold. the data doesn't really need any resolution higher than that, so we just never put it in, because even if we added more categories for stuff like 25-30, 30-40, 45+, we'd just lump them all together under the category "has been around for old video game systems" anyway!
so chill out guys we're not calling you old sheesh
/OLD MAN RAGE
I will complain about feeling old regardless of what you do.
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nashville,tn
re: the nostalgia factor. yeah i've wondered about this quite a bit. on the one hand music in video games was definitely a factor in my musical experience as a kid(growing up in the 80's) i remember playing games just to hear the music and 8 bit timbres "take me" there in a sense, but there is something more at work since 8bit sounds are so full of information....i think there is quite a bit ground to be explored in the physicality/phenomenology of 8bit music. its like distorted guitars turned up really loud-yr brain does this weird thing with the sensory overload its quite the unique experience....
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hardcore, Australia
Blame it all on the 20 year gap between "I want that" as a kid to "I have income now and can afford that" of a young adult.
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Philly, PA, USA
Ok now that I'm more awake and less cranky, I have a few points of what I hope are constructive criticism for the survey.
Since you're looking at alternatives to video games of what may inspire enjoyment of chip music you might want to look at what other kinds of music people listen to rather than asking what video games they play and how much they play them. I would consider myself a gamer to a degree, but I would say it has little to no effect on my musical tastes. I have actually found that I prefer non-chip style soundtracks in games, unless they are actually games on a limited system, for a plethora of reasons that I won't really go into here.
Also I would say you shouldn't trim that age range quite so much. While you're focus is on why younger people enjoy chip music, a large portion of analysis could come from the comparison of young groups to old groups, and then also looking at the few people who may answer who are in fact older than those who would have been enjoying 8 bit games as children (40+ or so?).
Also if you insist upon keeping the video-game oriented questions a more appropriate question might be something along the lines of "when did you start playing video games" because while I have played pong it's not something that was relevant to my generation, and similarly while I am currently a gamer, I did not start playing video games until late compared with some others.
Just an opinion but I think that the survey as is will give skewed results and you'll see the results how you want to see them. There is very little room for much reasoning beyond the realm of video game influences. perhaps doing a second round of surveys would be helpful looking at some things a bit deeper. I don't know if you'll find this helpful, but I just think looking at this requires looking away from video games for a bit, because while much chipmusic is made on video game systems, I would be hard pressed to reasonable compare modern chip music to video game music, or even video game sounds.
Also I just realized that looking into what genres of chipmusic would be important as well, because there will be clear differences between the people who enjoy the dancier chip music over the proggy/mathy chip music or chip metal or whathaveyou.
Anyway I'm going to stop writing this post before it gets any harder to understand.
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STARDRAIN, CA
in the end, I think this survey was trying to see whether chip music interested people based on nostalgia or not.
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A gray world of dread
Lazerbeat wrote:
Oh yeah, I wasn't meaning to be critical of it, it just feels like culture moves so fast now. Going back to my home town in England a few years ago and seeing kids aged 15 or 16 wearing "Kurt RIP 1994 " shirts was a bit odd. Also, I guess with so much culture now being digital, movies or books or music aren't quite so tied to a particular era any more.
I don't know. I'd have no problem wearing a Hendrix tee, even though he died 9 years before I was born. I wouldn't consider it "Faux Nostalgia" either, but just an expression that I enjoy his music. Similarly, I have an interest in certain time periods before I was born (I love Art Nouveau, for example) and sometimes wish I could visit those for a bit. Maybe it's the same for those kids?
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Armidale NSW Australia :D
I think the questions where a bit weird but i took it anyway XD
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Tokyo, Japan
µB wrote:
I don't know. I'd have no problem wearing a Hendrix tee, even though he died 9 years before I was born. I wouldn't consider it "Faux Nostalgia" either, but just an expression that I enjoy his music. Similarly, I have an interest in certain time periods before I was born (I love Art Nouveau, for example) and sometimes wish I could visit those for a bit. Maybe it's the same for those kids?
I actually thought about that exact same example, the Hendrix t shirt I mean, you did see people wearing the odd Hendrix or Morrison shirt when I was in college. I think it is just a contrast to Tokyo, here, it is rare to see people younger than late 20s at a chipmusic show. Generally they are old enough to have played games during the 80s. I think retro culture maybe has a bit more reach or appeal to younger generations outside of Japan. I would love to know what the secret sauce is cause it would mean more people at local chip shows!
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Godzilladelph
I rarely play video games. I have played video games from the early 1980s. I like the chiptune because the waveforms used are the very basic building blocks of any type of musical synthesis.
R00O07S$S$5$S$$5$$$
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Decktonic wrote:
Now I feel old for being 26.
I'm 29, and now I'm scared of falling apart...
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Fargo
Decktonic wrote:
Now I feel old for being 26.
As do I. I don't like being in the final age bracket. :-/
I agree with some of the other stuff said about video games not necessarily affecting my musical taste. I don't listen to Mega Man soundtracks to get inspired. I listen to the music I'd normally listen to: rock, blues, funk, folk, bluegrass, etc., and I try to incorporate them into this medium which is rather fun to get involved with.