For an episode of the Music Creation 2022 challenge I wanted a simple 8-bit theme synchronised with pixel-art graphics.

Back then, video-game music used very simple technology: square, sine or triangle oscillators. I layered five oscillator tracks. The theme is a triangle wave, the harmony a sawtooth, and the rest make drums — kick, snare and bell — from filtered noise and fundamental frequencies.

The composition matters more. The progression is typical, in C major: tonic and dominant at first, then the subdominant, and tension from a diminished chord on the raised fourth. The contour and rhythm take a cue from Super Mario’s theme.

The graphics were inspired by Conway’s Game of Life. I did not use Conway’s exact rules; trial and error gave expanding squares. A cell stays alive with exactly one or two live neighbours; a dead cell is born with exactly one. Rendering is in Processing on a 160×90 matrix with periodic boundaries. The first configuration is sparse. Animation at 6 fps, a frame every sixteenth note.

The result was effective, and I had great fun. Watch the piece on Instagram.