♥ ABOUT

UsagiRu DAYO!!

              

  UsagiRu is a Brazilian project of picopop/chiptune created in in 2011 with the aim to disseminate Japanese music, their songs are mostly covers of famous songs "Nintendo" versions, but despite the genre is inspired mainly by new-wave bands of the Japanese year 80 as P-MODEL, Plastics, Halmens and Yapoos.

What is ChipTUNE?

 "Chiptune—also called chip music or 8-bit—is one of the liveliest, most progressive, diversified, and wildly convoluted musical genres that you’ve probably never heard of.Now let’s shuffle through lost Game Boy cartridges, huff and puff into our original Nintendo Entertainment System, and dust off the old Commodore 64 in an attempt to dig up the genre’s origins, and iron out the creases of this fairly original, oddly nostalgic, and awesomely low-tech brand of music.
Born in the ‘80s, chiptune really grew from the advent of home computer systems and entertainment consoles like the Atari, the Commodore 64, and the NES, as well as their newly programmable audio hardware.

  Simply put, chiptune is the sounds or music made from programming microchip-based hardware. Eventually chiptune became its own genre, which encompasses a multitude of sub-genres and sonic mutations using those original, elemental sounds.In its early stages, most people who gave a damn about it were programmers making music for video games.
 But as the technology became outdated, and the systems more advanced, chiptunes, and sampling these chips into electronic music, became cheap and easily accessible—and super-cool.
Thanks to the ease of using such hardware, people were able to create and emulate sounds found in heavy metal, rock ‘n’ roll, techno and jazz—among others.
Despite its beginnings as a genre born out of necessity, today chiptune is a retrospective look—a process of unearthing childhood consoles, and memories, striving for that authentic sound."   (Text by Corey Pool) 

WHAT IS DENPA MUSIC?

  Denpa (電波) means “electro-magnetic wave” in Japanese, and denpa-kei (電波系), or denpa-type, is a term for the kind of strange people who seem to be listening to something that only they can hear (in other words, picking up some weird radio waves). It doesn’t just apply to the kind of weirdos who run around wearing tinfoil hats, though, it has come to extend to people who live off in their own little dream worlds and have trouble communicating with the real world (mostly otaku). So, in essence, denpa songs are songs made to appeal to these types of people.

As with such vaguely defined subculture concepts as moe, the definition of what makes a person or a song denpa can vary wildly depending on who you ask, but generally accepted features of denpa music are:
1) Music and vocals that are politely termed “overly enthusiastic,”and often intentionally horrid.2) Lyrics that have no meaning (I know translators who’ve lost years of their life to denpa songs).3) Frequent use of sound effects to fill space, usually sung (examples: “chu chu!” and “yaaaaaay!”).4) An uncanny ability to get stuck in your head. 

(from http://www.spwug.com/2007/11/08/feel-the-sprouting-3-denpa-the-scourge-of-music)

"Denpa song (電波ソング) is a Japanese slang term to describe a kind of music which often features intentionally off-key vocals, weird lyrics, and an extreme ability to get stuck in your head.   It’s usually extremely up-beat, happy, cute and ocasionally fast. Please note that it’s not for everyone; it’s either love it or hate it. The term was born in the 90’s to describe people who are usually day-dreaming and living in their own fantasies, and it has grown into a subculture itself, spawning many doujin units and music artists dedicated to it.

"Denpa song (電波ソング) is a Japanese slang term to describe a kind of music which often features intentionally off-key vocals, weird lyrics, and an extreme ability to get stuck in your head.   It’s usually extremely up-beat, happy, cute and ocasionally fast. Please note that it’s not for everyone; it’s either love it or hate it. The term was born in the 90’s to describe people who are usually day-dreaming and living in their own fantasies, and it has grown into a subculture itself, spawning many doujin units and music artists dedicated to it.

The best source of information in English is this blog, dedicated exclusively to denpa:
http://www.denpanosekai.com/" (Text by HARUKA)  

What is DOJIN MUSIC?

 Dōjin music (同人音楽), also called otokei dōjin (音系同人) in Japan, is a sub-category of dōjin activity. Dōjin are basically non-official self-published Japanese works which can be based on official products or completely original creations. Such products are sold online on specialized sites, on the author's own sites and in conventions such as the very popular Comic Markets.
 Dōjin music isn't a musical genre in itself but is indicative of a particular publishing way, like the term "indie" would be.

 Dōjin music consists very often of video game music fan arrangements. Much original music is also created, be it music for dōjin games or simply mainstream music such as pop, rock, techno or trance.

 By nature, dōjin music is often synthetic digital productions which allow for self-production at low costs, as opposed to studio mastering live instruments require. It is pretty common to have one live instrument such as a guitar backed up by synthetic orchestrations, though, and full instrumentation is becoming more and more common in dōjin music, such as orchestral works or dōjin jazz.

 Dōjin music artists can be solo or band projects. It is very common for members of different groups to collaborate on an album. Some projects, such as Woodsoft, are collaborations of several artists contributing to a given theme for each of their album releases.

Each members of a group usually have their individual site on which they release their personal works free to download and possibly give updates about their involvement in upcoming albums. Some artists actually never release albums and keep their artistic activity to this free-for-all form. The most productive groups usually release 2 albums a year which are released in summer and winter editions of the Comic Markets conventions and sold for an average of 1000 yen for full length ones. The most involved and popular artists are usually featured on their own group albums but also make guest appearance on other groups' CDs.

 The albums themselves benefit of various treatment depending on groups, from plain CD-R to fully printed packaging including the CD, with quality often similar to official products.
Aside from the Comic Market, events held in Japan for dōjin music include the biannual "M3" and the "Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai" (limited to Touhou Project related music).

 Sometimes, people may rewrite the lyrics of an existing anime song to create a dōjin song, or insert lyrics into an originally instrumental anime track. This kind of dōjin songs is called "dōjin lyrics" (同人詞 dōjinshi). Many dōjin lyrics are written in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Moreover, you can find "fandub" of different languages of an ACG song, Game song or Vocaloid song, like English fandub, French Fandub, Spanish fandub, etc. All of these are Dōjin lyrics of different languages.

Font: Wikipedia 

Learn more at:
http://altairandvega.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/denpa-bigaku-riron-the-rise-of-the-radio-aesthetic-in-japanese-subculture-in-the-21st-century/