Just like Space Invaders

Programming / Music.

For the youngest, it will surely not remind anything – but as I am not in the youngest, Space Invaders inevitably resonates in my memory.

Do you remember this game? It was a terrible game – the game where we couldn’t win.
The game where we could only ‘score’ – raise our score and put the beginning of our first name in the machine’s memory to pound the other players in the game room.

Space Invaders is a 1978 arcade game  – THE arcade game, created by Tomohiro Nishikado.

It doesn’t sound like much – but this man didn’t have a computer to program Space Invaders – he made it himself, he bought the components that were really absolutely expensive – he invented and drew the characters so that they could be adapted to the constraints of the Pixel

and obviously, he programmed the game, so that people would learn what these new machines were : microcomputers.
In 1979, we were not yet on the laptop – to think of putting a computer in every home was already an extravagant dream – and the big industrial names of the time were those of the machine manufacturers – not the distributors of programs or applications.

It was not yet the time of programming.
He says it himself: by proposing Space Invaders, he largely contributed to explode the game : it became possible to program. It became possible for a layman to use a computer – without learning those barbaric languages, without being alone in front of a black screen and a highlighted green dash. It became possible to have your own microcomputer and pretend to be too good at what microprocessors were – just by reading popular magazines.

I hope you are interested.
But this is largely more a tribute to the man than my topic of the day.
Although.

In the thorny subjects for Altair (which I find thorny, because I am not used to these arts), there is the so-called classical music, the great music, and I do not speak to you about the baroque music which represents for me, a priori, a summit of strangeness.
I told myself that I needed at least the beauty of Kim Novak to attract many young guys in a hall that gave baroque music.

I still maintain that.
But the others?
And then it will work once.

On the other hand, and I’ve been using videos that use this piano_™ staging software for a while now, there is one idea that is a must keep.
I can listen to the whole thing – because I’m fascinated by these strange notes coming down to the keyboard – is he going to succeed, is he going to manage to blow them away?
Just like in Space Invaders.
It was lost when the alien touched the ground.
Lost if the note touches the piano

Does this only apply to me? I find myself passionate about listening to the music and at the same time frightened to see all those notes falling, inexorable, sometimes so many, it’s terrific – and it becomes narrative, epic, the pianist’s playing becomes an exhilarating adventure that you wouldn’t give up for anything in the world…

Yes, I know – I’m very childish, it’s true – it scatters ‘real music’, it’s true too – but for scattered children, of which I am still one – it’s exactly the way we had to develop to tie our hearts together.

So obviously, when I realize that there is a series of the most difficult pieces, I look.

And then when I see that there are “four-handed” pieces, I look too – especially when it’s hard rock – and I read the comments and I know that the people who comment are as childlike as I am – I feel much less alone.

And finally, what do I discover? That this infernal musician also realized my favorite OST of my times of big depression: here are my JoJo in music, in the Space Invaders style – and how better to pay homage to this game and its creator than, from detour to detour, to use it to give back to everyone the love of the piano?

You’ll tell me that I’m halfway there and that it’s all well and good, but what do we do with it in Altair?
And I say that the day I get rich, I’ll work full time for Altair & in the waiting time, everyone is waiting. Toc. 🙂 ❤

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Featured image : a so famous Space Invaders‘ Alien