ISTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES CREATING MUSIC ‘INSIDE THE BOX’: DO CHIPTUNE’S LIMITATIONS HAVE AESTHETIC AND CREATIVE VALUE? M.A. THESIS Hazal Elif YALVAÇ Department of Music Music M.A. Programme JUNE 2019 ISTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES CREATING MUSIC ‘INSIDE THE BOX’: DO CHIPTUNE’S LIMITATIONS HAVE AESTHETIC AND CREATIVE VALUE? M.A. THESIS Hazal Elif YALVAÇ (409151111) Department of Music Music M.A. Programme Thesis Advisor: Assist. Prof. Gökhan DENEÇ JUNE 2019 İSTANBUL TEKNİK ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ ‘KALIPLARIN İÇİNDE’ MÜZİK ÜRETMEK: CHIPTUNE’DA LİMİTASYONLARIN ESTETİK VE YARATICI DEĞERİ VAR MIDIR? YÜKSEK LİSANS TEZİ Hazal Elif YALVAÇ (4009151111) Müzik Anabilim Dalı Müzik Yüksek Lisans Programı Tez Danışmanı: Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Gökhan DENEÇ HAZİRAN 2019 Hazal Elif Yalvaç, a M.A. student of ITU Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences student ID 4009151111, successfully defended the thesis/dissertation entitled “CREATING MUSIC ‘INSIDE THE BOX’: DO CHIPTUNE’S LIMITATIONS HAVE AESTHETIC AND CREATIVE VALUE?”, which she prepared after fulfilling the requirements specified in the associated legislations, before the jury whose signatures are below. Thesis Advisor : Assist. Prof. Gökhan DENEÇ .............................. Istanbul Technical University Jury Members : Assist. Prof. Gökhan DENEÇ ............................. Istanbul Technical University Assist. Prof. Taylan ÖZDEMİR .............................. Istanbul Technical University Assoc. Prof. Barkın ENGİN .............................. Bahçeşehir University Date of Submission : 3 May 2019 Date of Defense : 11 June 2019 v vi To my father, Nurettin Yalvaç, vii viii FOREWORD I was a very young girl when my father introduced me to Atari computer games. They impacted me in many ways, and they still do: an ongoing inspiration since my childhood. The sounds in those games especially became part of this inspiration, seeding my ongoing interest in sound design and sonic arts. I lost my father back in 2013 but his memory is always with me. I have dedicated this thesis to him. My own Chiptune adventure is therefore partly a nostalgia story, but I am still fascinated by how amazingly these primitive noises and “bleeps” can be used to create sounds and music that may become complex and fascinating. They certainly have an aesthetic appeal on many levels for me, personally, and I have always wanted to explore and understand the value of these sounds and to introduce them to others. I would like to thank Ozan Sarıer for showing me that this music I was interested in for some time has a separate existence that I was previously unaware of, that I found rewarding to investigate, and to write about as my thesis topic. I would also like to thank Gökhan Deneç for taking on the direct supervision of this project, for meeting and for prompting me with his questions; also for not doubting that I would find a way to write it eventually. In writing this thesis, I was also able to consult a dear friend and collaborator, Michael Bearpark, who tremendously supported me throughout my study and thesis. He offered valuable suggestions, and often challenged me to go beyond what I thought I was capable of. ix I want to thank my family for supporting my musical journey from the very first day, and hence supporting this thesis. I’m grateful to the ‘Europe in 8 bits’ documentary team for giving me access to their film. Finally, I am indebted to the Chiptune artists who agreed to be interviewed for this thesis: for their insights and precious assistance in helping me to create an original research work. May 2019 Hazal Elif YALVAÇ x TABLE OF CONTENTS Page FOREWORD ............................................................................................................. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... xi ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................. xiii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................. xv SUMMARY ............................................................................................................ xvii ÖZET ........................................................................................................................ xix INTRODUCTION . ............................................................................................... 1 Purpose of Thesis ............................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 Thesis outline .............................................................................................. 3 Literature Review ............................................................................................... 4 Hypothesis .......................................................................................................... 7 1.3.1 Methodology ............................................................................................... 7 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHIPTUNE .......................................................... 15 Chiptune Past: “The Ghosts In The Machines”................................................ 16 2.1.1 Chiptune prehistory ................................................................................... 17 2.1.2 The development of Chiptune hardware – especially SID and NES ........ 20 2.1.3 The development of Chiptune software - trackers .................................... 22 2.1.4 The Demoscene and the birth of Chiptune ................................................ 24 Chiptune (To The) Present ............................................................................... 29 2.2.1 Game Boys and trackers in Chiptune music ............................................. 34 2.2.2 Combining Game Boy with other instruments ......................................... 38 Technical Aspects: Chiptune Devices And Their Limitations ......................... 38 2.3.1 An overview of Programmable Sound Generators ................................... 39 2.3.2 Limitations: how their use affected the realization of musical ideas ........ 45 CREATING INSIDE THE BOX ........................................................................ 51 Does Chiptune Exemplify The Value Of Limitations For Creativity? ............ 52 3.1.1 Classifying the creative value of Chiptune ............................................... 54 3.1.2 Interviews with Chiptune musicians on the creative value of limitations 55 Aesthetics: More About The Chiptune Sounds Themselves ............................ 61 CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................. 67 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 71 CURRICULUM VITAE .......................................................................................... 87 xi xii ABBREVIATIONS DAW : Digital Audio Workstation MIDI : Musical Instrument Digital Interface MOS : Metal Oxide Silicon NES : Nintendo Entertainment System PSG : Programmable Sound Generator SID : Sound Interface Device TIA : Television Interface Adapter xiii xiv LIST OF FIGURES Page Sine wave......................................................................................... 40 Square wave..................................................................................... 40 Figure 2.3.1.3 : Triangle wave. ................................................................................. 41 Figure 2.3.1.4 : Sawtooth wave ................................................................................ 41 Figure 2.3.1.5 : Envelope - ADSR. ........................................................................... 42 xv xvi CREATING MUSIC ‘INSIDE THE BOX’: DO CHIPTUNE’S LIMITATIONS HAVE AESTHETIC AND CREATIVE VALUE? SUMMARY Chiptune is music created with the sound chips that were part of computers and computer games consoles in the 1980s and 1990s e.g. Commodore 64, Atari ST & Amiga, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) & Game Boy. Creating music with these chips back then involved many challenges, from what now seem like severe limitations: in sound choices, note polyphony, sample rates, and sequencer memory. These challenges - which mirrored the challenges of creating the computer games themselves that the music became central to - forced programmers / composers to innovate. As this thesis will explore, these computer games and their music indirectly spawned a musical approach that has developed in its own right, as Chiptune. The central aim of this thesis is to investigate the aesthetic and creative value of Chiptune’s limitations: the enduring appeals of both the sounds themselves and the compositional devices that are such a distinctive feature of the music. To do this, we will first focus on history, explaining what the ‘chips’ are, their origins, limitations, and the resulting innovations that programmers / composers developed to work round these. We will then explore Chiptune’s development outside of a gaming context through to what’s current: who’s doing this now, what exactly are they doing, and what do they value about it? What do Chiptune practitioners say about this music? In published interviews, the academic research literature, and in new interviews carried out as part of this study in April 2019. This thesis will further investigate the creative value