Does the idea of making original music for your PICO-8 games fill you with dread? Have previous attempts resulted in music that is boring or confusing or just a dissonant mess?  You might blame a lack of talent, but more likely you just lack an understanding of how music works. 

This tutorial provides an introduction to the basics of pitch, melody, harmony, rhythm and composition within the context of PICO-8. It explores music in a decidedly mathy way through a series of interactive demos that use spatial relations to connect sound to vision. Upon completion, you will have the skills and knowledge you need to add original music to your games.  It's easier than you think.

This tutorial runs best on a desktop or laptop computer.  You will need a mouse.  The 🅾️ and ❎buttons are mapped to the Z and X keys.

StatusIn development
CategoryOther
PlatformsHTML5
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(2 total ratings)
AuthorJenny Schmidt (bikibird)
TagsMusic, PICO-8, Tutorial
Average sessionA few hours
InputsKeyboard, Mouse

Development log

Comments

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(+1)

This is awesome, thanks for making this! The visualization into the similarities of pallets really made different scales ‘click’ for me! Looking forward to the rest of the series.

(1 edit) (+1)

Thank you! I highly recommend anyone wanting to learn music theory give this a chance. Maybe it's bc I'm a visual learner, but this has been the helpful set of tutorials I've discovered for Pico-8 and probably music in general.

(+1)

This tutorial is amazing. As someone with zero musical background, I am finding it incredibly useful!

I'm so glad to hear it's helping.  I also plan to release more lessons in the coming months.

(+1)

Great, I'm looking forward to it! :)