8-bit Music in Context

Franco Fabbri, Civica Scuola di Musica ‘Claudio Abbado’, Milan, Italy

I don’t remember exactly when I became aware of terms like ‘8-bit music’ or ‘chiptune’, but I am
sure that it didn’t happen while I was working with microcomputers to generate music, that is
between 1982 and 1986. I read those terms much later, some Ime in the 2000s, and then I
discovered I had been, at least in Italy, one of the pioneers of 8-bit music (or chiptune). On the web
there are interviews and collecIons of some of my pieces, in various formats, which were
published by 8-bit music enthusiasts, during one of the revivals of that sound.1 However, those
sources only reference my, so to speak, ‘pure 8-bit music’, in the narrow sense of videogame music,
while they ignore other composiIons, created for different purposes, and pieces where chiptunes
are integrated into a broader instrumental context, and this is also why I Itled this presentaIon 8-
bit Music in Context.
My interest in microcomputers originated from various ‘streams’: one was represented in the early
1970s by my studies in chemistry, and by learning Fortran for specific applicaIons (using Milan’s
university’s mainframe, an Univac 1106); another came from the discovery of pocket
programmable calculators, which I started to use as cheap subsItutes for the Univac, but also for
tasks related to my work as a musician, and for trying to compose stochasIc music on an HP-25. At
that Ime, in the second half of the 1970s, I was becoming interested in electronic music, and
started reading textbooks on that subject; I also took classes at Milan’s Conservatory, my main
course being composiIon. I found the instruments and techniques used in the electronic music
course very basic, and I started experimenIng at home. I began with simple tape montages, then I
set up a Ime lag accumulator, publicised in those years by the works of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp
(who called it ‘Frippertronics’). I performed solo with that equipment (using a guitar synthesizer as
the main sound generaIng instrument, and a cheap Roland rhythm box) and used it now and then
also in concerts with my band, the Stormy Six. The group was one of the founding members of
Rock In OpposiIon, established in 1977-1978, and its music was somehow influenced by other RIO
bands, like Henry Cow and Art Bears; I became aware of some instrumental techniques thanks to
the contacts with musicians like Fred Frith or Bob Ostertag; although Stormy Six had very different

1
An excellent search engine can be found here: https://gb64.com/search.php?f=0&t=0&s=&b=Go%21&d=18&a=0

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stylisIc origins (the band was born in 1965), it was normal in 1981 that a concert included long
improvisaIons based on synthesizers and electronic sound.
In that year I was invited by Radio Tre, the cultural program of RAI, Italian State Radio, as part of a
project whereby musicians had access for a week to one of the radio’s recording studios, in Rome,
in order to produce new music. The other musicians/bands invited (each one for one week) were
Fred Frith, Robert Wyaa, Throbbing Gristle, Luigi Cinque. I used my guitar synthesizer and rhythm
box, another synthesizer available in the studio, an electric and an acousIc guitar, a trombone, a
piano, and a Ime lag accumulator (for most pieces), created by the studio engineer using two
Studer tape recorders. A harmonizer and a digital delay were used generously, and (differently
from my live solo performances), I did overdubs.
Later that same year I was invited to take part in a fesIval of audio-visual arIsts in Milan, called Lo
zoo musicale (the musical zoo), where each arIst had to base his/her work on an animal. Among
other parIcipants there were Alvin Curran, ChrisIna Kubisch, Luigi Cinque, Giancarlo Schiaffini,
Tony Rusconi, Tristan Honsinger.2 My animal was a cricket. The improvised performance,
synchronised with the projecIon of slides created by Monica Silvestris, was based on a ‘score’,
suggesIng a chord sequence and other musical events, framed into an exact chronological
scheme.
Afer the event, I recreated the musical performance at home, and obtained the master tape for
what would become “DomesIc Flights”, one of the tracks in my first album, with the same name.
At the end of 1981 the Stormy Six were working at their eighth and last studio album, Al volo. One
of my contribuIons was “Piazza degli affari”, a song based on the superimposiIon of riffs and
loops, one of which, at the beginning, in the middle, and in the end, was generated by the Ime lag
accumulator and the guitar synthesizer. Both in “DomesIc Flights” and in “Piazza degli affari” (as
well as in other previous pieces) a notable feature was that the channel inputs and outputs were
crossed, so that whenever a sound was iniIally panned to the lef, its repeIIon would sound to
the right, and again to the lef, etc., creaIng a mobile stereophonic image. We’ll see that this
would be one of the resources that would drive my aaenIon to one parIcular microcomputer.
Actually, my first micro (at that Ime categories like ‘home computer’ or ‘personal computer’ were
in their infancy) was an Apple II, which I used for tasks like word processing, databases, staIsIcs
and graphics. It was an extremely useful tool for research on music consumpIon I developed with
a few colleagues, that we presented at the second internaIonal conference on popular music

2
https://www.teatrooutoff.it/spettacoli/zoo-musicale/

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studies held in Reggio Emilia (Italy) in September 1983, as well as in my work as organiser of that
conference. It wouldn’t be an exaggeraIon to say that Philip Tagg’s MicroBee (an Australian
microcomputer) and my Apple II were instrumental in the establishment of the InternaIonal
AssociaIon for the Study of Popular Music. PCs and Macs didn’t exist then.
Then came the DAI. It had been produced since 1980 by the Belgian company Data ApplicaIons
InternaIonal, iniIally under commission by Texas Instruments, who wanted a PAL-compaIble
micro and didn’t want to convert their TI-99/4A, designed for NTSC. InteresIngly, the micro had
the wriIng ‘DAI Personal Computer’ printed on the outer white plasIc shell (which made it look
like a sink in a futurisIc French motel). It was a rather advanced micro for that Ime: an Intel 8080A
processor, 48k of RAM, a 3-channel sound generator with a stereo DIN output, a feature that
wouldn’t appear on other microcomputers for years. I was given a DAI by the Italian distributor, for
a review, in 1982. By that Ime, DAI had filed for bankruptcy, and the micro was produced unIl
1984 by another company. Unfortunately, afer the test, I had to give the DAI back, with all its
documentaIon: it is the only computer I worked with that I don’t own to date. That’s why the only
source of informaIon I have about the sound generaIon system is my memory, and a few hints I
could find on Internet. Apparently, it was a General Instrument AY-3-8910. It offered a great deal of
programming flexibility, an even excessive frequency range, and it could be controlled by specific
instrucIons in the BASIC interpreter. So, I decided to create a computer version of my ‘cricket’
performance, using just intonaIon (and not equally tempered intonaIon), transcribing the score
into a BASIC program (the improvisaIonal features were emulated by a random number generator,
which was implemented in DAI’s hardware), and creaIng visual effects on the screen (coloured
lines, triangles, squares), synchronised with sounds. This is how I created various versions of the
piece, which I treated with the Ime lag accumulator: one of them, “Home Flight #2”, became the
other track in my Domes8c Flights album, released in 1983. Later, I had the opportunity to exhibit
my work in Paris, during a meeIng of independent record companies.
The Stormy Six didn’t exist anymore, but at some point in 1983 I was asked by my teacher in
composiIon, Luca Lombardi, to suggest an idea for a performance or a workshop to be held at the
CanIere Internazionale d’Arte of Montepulciano: the founder, Hans Werner Henze, was on
sabbaIcal, and Lombardi became the musical director for that year. Afer my experience at RAI in
1981, I suggested to use a mobile studio in Montepulciano, to produce music the way many rock
bands had been doing in the past decades, that is, composing with the studio as an instrument. I
invited Heiner Goebbels, Alfred Harth, and Chris Cutler, from the Anglo-German group Cassiber,

3
and three of the Stormy Six, Umberto Fiori, Pino MarIni, and myself. The task that we assigned to
ourselves was to record a basic track in couples (all the 15 possible couples within six members),
and then to let the remaining four to do overdubs. The studio was provided by RAI: it was the
same studio and engineer I had worked with in 1981. The results were then broadcast and
released (in part) by Recommended Records. Some of the pieces were generated by using tapes of
common noises: a floor polisher, a dot matrix printer, etc. We were asked by the fesIval organisers
to make a live performance of the pieces composed in/with the studio, and that was the hardest,
unforeseen part of the job, as usually bands who composed in the studio then rehearsed for weeks
to prepare the live version, while we had just a few hours. The final piece in the concert was “At
Last I Am Free”, by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, according to Robert Wyaa’s cover.
Afer giving the DAI back to its distributor, I decided to buy a Commodore 64. I think I was one of
the many who were fascinated by its sound-generaIng capabiliIes, although they weren’t superior
to the DAI’s. But I had the advantage of having already experimented with the programming in
BASIC of a three-oscillator sound chip. So, I was quick in developing a few short programs, which
exploited the SID to teach some basic noIons of acousIcs, electronic music, and synthesizers, as
well as SID programming (in BASIC, but there were also a couple of Assembly rouInes). A 72-page
book, Musica ele<ronica con il Commodore 64, was published, including program lisIngs and with
a casseae aaached. Here are the program names: Diapason, Forma d’onda (waveform), Filtro
(filter), Vibrato, Tremolo, SinteIzzatore, Generatore, Scale, ADSR diversi (various ADSR), Filter env.
The book had a tremendous success, it was sold in newspaper kiosks, in about 24 thousand copies:
one out of fifeen Italian owners of a Commodore 64 in 1984 bought it. Following that publicaIon,
I was invited to teach a course on music programming (on the Commodore 64) in Reggio Emilia. I
also wrote a monthly column on the subject for the music magazine Fare Musica. But, above all,
before all of that, I started using the Commodore 64, and especially a sequencer I programmed, as
one of the sound sources for several pieces that were commissioned by an experimental program
from Radio Tre, Audiobox: I called that collecIon of pieces La casa parlante (the talking home), as
most of them were based on common household noises. The Commodore 64 was present in
almost all pieces, and I enjoyed the sequencer’s ability to play in very irregular rhythms (unlike
most commercial sequencers available then) and with various tunings (unlike most MIDI
synthesizers).
1984 was a year of very hard work. I also completed a book, Ele<ronica e musica, which combined
technical descripIons with a history of electroacousIc and electronic music, covering both

4
avantgarde/experimental applicaIons and popular music. I finished working on the analyIcal index
just a few hours before leaving for a summer holiday, and then started reading and learning the full
Assembly lisIng of the Commodore 64 operaIng system. That was the premise for my next work,
Compositore, which would be released two years later (1986) by the same publisher as Musica
ele<ronica per il Commodore 64. It wasn’t as successful as its predecessor, but anyway it sold a
significant number of copies (6 thousand), considered that it was directed to a much more
sophisIcated user base, wishing to have a composing sofware with features that would be
available only years later, on much more powerful systems. It even allowed to synchronise a
rhythm box by a simple electric connecIon between the C-64 24-pin user port and the external
instrument. However, the user interface was primiIve, compared to the WIMP (windows, icons,
mouse, pointer) interfaces popularised by the Mac, and later by Windows 2.0. It was clear to me,
then, that the Ime of the Commodore 64 and of powerful music sofware created by just one
programmer was over. Anyway, I heard that it was used by some just as a tutorial for Assembly
language.
But the Ime of 8-bit music wasn’t yet finished for me. A programmer and publisher of C-64
videogames, Cino Maffezzoli, catering for the same newspaper kiosk market as my books, already
in 1985 had asked me to compose music for his products. I am not sure if I used my own sofware
or some music editor I was given by him, but I wrote several pieces, some of which Maffezzoli
(assisted by other musicians, I guess) modified according to the needs of his games. I was never
shown the game before wriIng the music, but I received suggesIons about the mood, the speed,
the variaIons. If there was any interacIon between the game and the music, I wasn’t involved. It
was a Ime when I was rapidly moving to the IT sector, working for Acorn and Olivep, and later for
Silicon Valley companies, like NCD or Adobe. Those Iny chiptunes were my hobby, while I was
involved in the launch of the earliest implementaIons of the ARM chip (and I was only slightly
surprised by the fact that many of the top-level engineers I met were also musicians).

Bibliography
Bridgewater, Michael, 2023, ‘Industrial Techno and SID Sound Design in the Commodore 64
Game Slipstream’, Journal of Sound and Music in Games (2023) 4 (1), 9–25.
Chamberlin, Hal, 1985, Musical Applica8ons of Microprocessors, Indianapolis, Hayden Books.
Collins, Karen, 2007, ‘In the Loop: CreaIvity and Constraint in 8-bit Video Game Audio’, Twen8eth-
Century Music, Volume 4, Issue 2, September 2007, pp. 209 – 227.
Fabbri, Franco, 1984, Ele<ronica e Musica, con una introduzione di Luigi Nono, Milano, Fratelli
Fabbri Editori.
Fabbri, Franco, 1984, Musica ele<ronica con il Commodore 64, Milano, ArI Grafiche Ricordi.

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Fabbri, Franco, 1986, Compositore. Musica ele<ronica con il Commodore 64, parte seconda,
Milano, ArI Grafiche Ricordi.
McAlpine, Kenny, 2019, ‘Press Play on Tape. 8-bit ComposiIon on the Commodore 64’, in
Innova8on in Music: Performance, Produc8on, Technology, and Business, edited by Russ Hepworth-
Sawyer, Jay Hodgson, JusIn Paterson, Rob Toulson, New York and London, Routledge, 37-51.

Music
Fabbri, Franco, 1981, La chitarra ro<a (radio producIon), RAI Radio Tre.
Fabbri, Franco, 30.7.1981, Grillo (audio-visual performance), in Zoo musicale, Milano, Castello
Sforzesco (an event including performances by Alvin Curran, ChrisIna Kubisch, Luigi Cinque,
Giancarlo Schiaffini, Tristan Honsinger, and others).
Stormy Six, 1982, Al volo (LP), l’Orchestra.
Cutler, Fabbri, Fiori, Goebbels, Harth, MarIni, 1983, The Cassix Project, FesIval di Montepulciano.
Fabbri, Franco, 1983, Domes8c Flights (LP), l’Orchestra.
Fabbri, Franco, 1984, La casa parlante (radio producIon), Audiobox, RAI Radio Tre.
Fabbri Franco, 1988, John Brenner – Boston Cel8cs, music for the videogame, programmed by
Fausto Scordato and Cino Maffezzoli.
Fabbri, Franco, 2009, Luci (CD), Ishtar.