Music has been part of our culture for numerous centuries. Whether it is the classical compositions performed by Neville Orchestra or modern pop music form Lady GaGa. We can all recognize music in different ways and forms. However, there are some music that explores and openly defies the way music is played traditionally. This is seen as the Futurism movement of the 20th century, where different artists experimented on ways of playing instruments as well as inventing completely new, intriguing instruments. Another example of this is seen in the modern times where the emergence of a new music culture called Chiptunes. These “tunes” are created from data chips and synthesizers of old video game consoles, which provides a rather "retro" sounding tune. Although the two seems to be rather distant in genre, it is possible to draw similarities between the two.
Futurism in Music
Futurism, by definition, is an movement of the arts primarily from the 1920s to the 1930s and those who support futurism are considered to be futurists (futurism). Often times their ideas and contributions have been were put into journals, manifestos, and exhibitions.In terms of music, these movements focused mostly on the machine age and the characteristics of music in the 20th century (Harvard). In this investigation in particular, I've chosen to look at the composition titled "Ballét Mécanique", which is a collaboration with the French film maker Fernand Léger, Although being an American composer, the composition follows the style of music of the Futurism era. Antheil used a selection of rather nontraditional techniques in music to create a "latter-like" rhythm, which causes a rather stiff chromaticism in the music. The original clip is shown below:
Now, why would anyone sane consider this monstrosity music? The main reason why music from the 20th century sounds completely out of the blue is because composers were experimenting with music using unorthodox techniques and new inventions to create an abstract version of Classical Music. Although the composition is lacking defined melody, the use of the "new technology" creates an mechanical tone to the music.
Looking back at the video one can see a compilation of random images and video clips that does not seem to be related to each other at all. This is rather similar to the rather unstructured form of "Ballét Mécanique", where the melody cannot be easily identified and that it is nearly impossible to identify when the music began or ended before looking at the sidebar. Because the entire track sounded rather similar to a train wreck, it can be inferred that the use of technology in music of the 20th century ruined the easily definable structure in music.
Chiptunes
Chiptunes is a collection of related music production and performance practices that originally comes from videos games in the 1980s. Chiptunes, at it's most definite term, refers to music that were composed for any audio hardware that require micro-chips in early home computers and gaming consoles (Gameboys, NESes, SNEs, etc). The better chips exposed a more complex polyphonic synthesizer to composers who learned to program them. (Diaz & Driscoll) By experimenting with the microchips voices and noise generator, chiptunes artists in the 1980s, though most were creating music for video games, created a palette of sounds with which to emulate popular styles like heavy metal, techno, ragtime, and classical. These chips were created with limitation so that it may fit the minimal file sizes of video games. The flutelike melodies, buzzing “wave bass”, rapid arpeggios, and noisy gated percussion would eventually be considered to be a style of music, which are often used by people who are interested in programming as well as electronic indie artists. However the more recent music that were create by these musicians are mostly mixed in between Retro/Chiptunes, and Dance/dubsteps/electro etc. An example can be found here.
Below is a trending graph of Chiptunes:
These type of music has, to some extent, traits that are similar to music of Futurism in the 20th century. One of these include the use the technology to implement melody into the music and the selection of non traditional instruments. Otherwise, it is rather more structured and less distorted compared to the music of the Futurism era. Nonetheless, not all compositions in the Chiptunes genre are complete. Some of them are loops intended to continue the same melody and rhythm to infinity and often times are included in video game. Chiptunes itself in terms of creating meaning and its effect on music, has allowed individuals the freedom to explore and manipulate music, which is rather similar to the exploration in the Futurism era in music. Putting it into consideration,it can be inferred that the two genres have no doubt altered the way music is created.
Please click HERE, or the link on the left tab to go to the second part of this investigation.
Chiptunes and 20th Century Futurism
Music has been part of our culture for numerous centuries. Whether it is the classical compositions performed by Neville Orchestra or modern pop music form Lady GaGa. We can all recognize music in different ways and forms. However, there are some music that explores and openly defies the way music is played traditionally. This is seen as the Futurism movement of the 20th century, where different artists experimented on ways of playing instruments as well as inventing completely new, intriguing instruments. Another example of this is seen in the modern times where the emergence of a new music culture called Chiptunes. These “tunes” are created from data chips and synthesizers of old video game consoles, which provides a rather "retro" sounding tune. Although the two seems to be rather distant in genre, it is possible to draw similarities between the two.
Futurism in Music
Futurism, by definition, is an movement of the arts primarily from the 1920s to the 1930s and those who support futurism are considered to be futurists (futurism). Often times their ideas and contributions have been were put into journals, manifestos, and exhibitions.In terms of music, these movements focused mostly on the machine age and the characteristics of music in the 20th century (Harvard). In this investigation in particular, I've chosen to look at the composition titled "Ballét Mécanique", which is a collaboration with the French film maker Fernand Léger, Although being an American composer, the composition follows the style of music of the Futurism era. Antheil used a selection of rather nontraditional techniques in music to create a "latter-like" rhythm, which causes a rather stiff chromaticism in the music. The original clip is shown below:
Now, why would anyone sane consider this monstrosity music? The main reason why music from the 20th century sounds completely out of the blue is because composers were experimenting with music using unorthodox techniques and new inventions to create an abstract version of Classical Music. Although the composition is lacking defined melody, the use of the "new technology" creates an mechanical tone to the music.
Looking back at the video one can see a compilation of random images and video clips that does not seem to be related to each other at all. This is rather similar to the rather unstructured form of "Ballét Mécanique", where the melody cannot be easily identified and that it is nearly impossible to identify when the music began or ended before looking at the sidebar. Because the entire track sounded rather similar to a train wreck, it can be inferred that the use of technology in music of the 20th century ruined the easily definable structure in music.
Chiptunes
Chiptunes is a collection of related music production and performance practices that originally comes from videos games in the 1980s. Chiptunes, at it's most definite term, refers to music that were composed for any audio hardware that require micro-chips in early home computers and gaming consoles (Gameboys, NESes, SNEs, etc). The better chips exposed a more complex polyphonic synthesizer to composers who learned to program them. (Diaz & Driscoll) By experimenting with the microchips voices and noise generator, chiptunes artists in the 1980s, though most were creating music for video games, created a palette of sounds with which to emulate popular styles like heavy metal, techno, ragtime, and classical. These chips were created with limitation so that it may fit the minimal file sizes of video games. The flutelike melodies, buzzing “wave bass”, rapid arpeggios, and noisy gated percussion would eventually be considered to be a style of music, which are often used by people who are interested in programming as well as electronic indie artists. However the more recent music that were create by these musicians are mostly mixed in between Retro/Chiptunes, and Dance/dubsteps/electro etc. An example can be found here.
Below is a trending graph of Chiptunes:
These type of music has, to some extent, traits that are similar to music of Futurism in the 20th century. One of these include the use the technology to implement melody into the music and the selection of non traditional instruments. Otherwise, it is rather more structured and less distorted compared to the music of the Futurism era. Nonetheless, not all compositions in the Chiptunes genre are complete. Some of them are loops intended to continue the same melody and rhythm to infinity and often times are included in video game. Chiptunes itself in terms of creating meaning and its effect on music, has allowed individuals the freedom to explore and manipulate music, which is rather similar to the exploration in the Futurism era in music. Putting it into consideration,it can be inferred that the two genres have no doubt altered the way music is created.
Please click HERE, or the link on the left tab to go to the second part of this investigation.