Archive for November 2013

Beta Test Music Video

Beta Test Music played at musiXplore on November 17, 2013. Here is the theme to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that they performed:

There are also videos available for the other pieces they performed: Still Alive from Portal, Necromorphs from Dead Space 2, and the themes from Romancing SaGa, DuckTales and Castlevania.

Guitarist David Beardsley played the same day, but that video has some technical problems we are cleaning up.

Beta Test Music – November 17

Beta Test Music

Clockwise from upper left, Steve Lakawicz, Douglas Lausten, Benjamin Mulholland and Brandon Frumolt

Our next performers have a different angle no matter which way you look at them. Take a brass trio (tuba, trombone and french horn), add a guitar. Interesting! But this isn’t just any quartet. This is a group that grew up on Super Mario, so they pay tribute to the music of video games. Right there, you’ve got a sound we guarantee you aren’t going to hear anywhere else!

You’ll be hearing pieces like Necromorphs, which uses gameplay audio from Dead Space II and re-scores the theme to reflect a more traditional horror soundscape. Music from the video games Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, Portal, and DuckTales re-orchestrated, re-arranged, and played by both live instruments and chip sounds, or lo-fi digital synthesis reminiscent of early generation video games. We might even hear new takes on some television theme music!

Beta Test writes: “Our goal as a group is to play music in and around video game culture. This music holds a high nostalgia factor, but much of it also stands up as interesting music that can be transformed. Beta Test Music puts our own imprint on the music we perform, whether by creating originals that fit alongside our arrangements, or by creating arrangements that feel like performed remixes and re-imaginations of the original material.”

Here is a sample of Beta Test Music:



David Beardsley

Microtonal guitarist David Beardsley

Opening for Beta Test Music is microtonal guitarist David Beardsley. A long time resident of New Jersey, David Beardsley is one of the New York area’s foremost microtonal guitarists. Meditative and mesmerizing, his playing is steeped in Indian music and blues as much as it is the late 20th century minimalist tradition. You can hear a sample of his music here.