Inadvertently, I believe that having just one key and a limited amount of music notes helped the early creators of chiptune music to write good music. It is widely used in popular music today. The key of C major has no sharps or flats. Most (if not all) of the early chiptune music was composed in the key of C as this was the only option available. Musical key plays an important part in music composition and conveying feeling. There is just the right amount of repetition to get the melody in your head but it is not repeated enough to annoy the listener. The vast majority of popular music today follows this tried and tested songwriting structure because it works. The structure of the songs themselves often followed the standard “verse-chorus-verse- bridge- chorus” formula. The early chiptune music was very simple in its structure with a simple single melody line. Typically single notes played in a short loop makes a simple melody memorable. Think about all the musical riffs you love for a minute….perhaps it is the lead intro in the Guns N Roses classic, “Sweet Child O Mine” or an electronic riff in a dance tune…whatever your favourite musical melody is, it will be pretty simple. In music, the best melodies are the simplest ones. When I think about the characteristics of chiptune music already mentioned, I have to ask, why do we love chiptune music so much? Putting on my music composers hat, let me give you my theory as to why chiptune music is so appealing.
Many would argue that nostalgia plays a big part in loving chiptune music as it brings some of us back to our childhoods, but I still love chiptune music today, even the chiptune music that is being composed in 2020 I am fascinated with and love to listen too. In other music genres, this would not sound good but in chiptune music, it is great and is part of the sound! A note is played at exactly the same force every time and it does sound “robotic”. Yet, with chiptune music, there is only one standard dynamic (or velocity as we call it in the music production world). Imagine playing the piano by striking the keys at exactly the same force every time? You could argue that the music would sound “robotic” and lack emotion and dynamics. When you play a musical instrument like a piano for example, how hard or softly you press the keys creates emotions and dynamics in the song. The dynamics of the song had to remain constant.The tempo of the music had to remain constant for the entire song.There was often one musical key available.As already mentioned, a lot of the early chiptune music was created by computer programmers and not “seasoned composers” or musicians.Īlso, there were a lot of limitations placed on this music. Given the limitations of chiptune music, it is amazing that it sounds so good. To create chiptune music in the early days, you needed a fundamental background in programming and understanding in this early technology, therefore the programmers themselves did the music.Ĭreating computer-generated monotone notes with a limited range in one musical key, performed by a computer programmer sounds like an audio disaster waiting to happen but the opposite is true.Ĭhiptune music was loved then and it is still loved today. I find it fascinating that most if not all of the very early chiptune music were composed by computer programmers and not music composers. Being a tiny chip, the sound processor did not take up much physical space and given how the music was saved also to these chips, very little virtual memory was used. Using the chips themselves created a great space-saving option for playing music. Unlike today, where we have nearly infinite data storage and can load up our modern games with lots of impressive graphics and elaborate orchestral music scores, in the early days of video games, memory space was precious with very little to spare. after the computer chips that were used to perform the music. In the early days of video game music, the computer chips themselves which had an inbuilt sound processing unit were used as a musical instrument to produce the sound this is why they are called “chiptune” i.e. Chiptune music originates from the early era of arcades and video games.
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