8-bit music, or Chiptune, is a nostalgic genre. Composers write music in the limitations of old game consoles, such as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The only thing this simple computer from 1980 could play was a maximum of three digital "bleeps" at the same time, and some white noise that could be used for percussion.
In 2016, Teun was asked to compose for a game in the style and limitations of the NES. That's how he dove into chiptune music, and pushed it to its limits.
Teun Buwalda (Utrecht, 2000) has been doing music for as long as he can remember. He shapes his ideas using piano, trombone and his own voice, but his favourite thing to do is writing arrangements and compositions. A sucker for music theory, Teun describes his own work as a middle ground between easy listening and complex jazz. Experimental musical concepts can be fun to explore, but everyone should be able to enjoy the sound.
Teun grew up in Culemborg and started on West African djembe as well as piano. Before middle school, he sung in multiple youth choirs and performed with bands. At O.R.S. Lek en Linge, he assembled a network of anyone he could find who could play an instrument, and often started small projects. Meanwhile he conducted musicals, arranged for his a capella group and dozens of bands, and participated in the composing contest set out each year by the Netherlands Wind Ensemble. During his final year at high school, he followed a preparatory year for Composition at the Amsterdam Conservatory.
Nowadays, Teun is an Artificial Intelligence Student at Utrecht University. However, music never left his side: Teun continues to start musical projects, travel around with world-renowned choir Dekoor Close Harmony and explores the borders between AI and music. In 2022, he followed the Music & Technology in Practice minor at HKU and in 2023, he wrote his bachelor’s thesis about tuning systems.
Teun can always be reached via e-mail: teuncb@gmail.com