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Posted by Aissen 12/19/2025

8-bit Boléro(linusakesson.net)
345 points | 46 comments
thomassmith65 12/19/2025|

  According to a possibly apocryphal story from the premiere performance, a woman was heard shouting that Ravel was mad. When told about this, Ravel is said to have remarked that she had understood the piece.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bol%C3%A9ro
mlsu 12/20/2025|
And, Ravel did eventually go mad. There's a lot of discussion about whether the recurring patterns in the song had something to do with his neurological condition.

https://bigthink.com/high-culture/bolero-ravel-dementia-2/

xxr 12/20/2025|||
“Initially, Ravel was to create a variation on the music of Isaac Albéniz, but copyright laws prevented him from doing so.” [your article]

“[Koji Kondo] had planned to use Maurice Ravel's Boléro as the title theme as it perfectly matched its speed, seeing as under Japanese copyright law, music is released into the public domain 50 years after the composer's death. However, Kondo was forced to change it in November 1985, late in the game's development, after learning that it had only been 47 years and 11 months after Ravel's death.”[1]

Funny how things rhyme.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda_(video_gam...

ericio 12/20/2025|||
RadioLab did an excellent episode [1] about Bolero, where it asks the question if it was a leading indicator of Ravel’s madness.

1. https://radiolab.org/podcast/unraveling-bolero

fodmap 12/19/2025||
That Commodore C64 accordion made me laugh.

Ah it's called The Commodordion https://linusakesson.net/commodordion/index.php

pavel_lishin 12/19/2025||
It's kind of incredible!

A direct youtube link for the lazy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6z5__6rP58

sivers 12/19/2025|||
And don't miss the Qweremin:

https://linusakesson.net/qweremin/

Brilliant.

opello 12/20/2025||
Wow, there are multiple things like that!

Qweremin: C64 Theremin: https://linusakesson.net/hardware/theremin/index.php

Qwertar: C64 Keytar: https://linusakesson.net/music/glyptodont-live/index.php

Very neat!

consumer451 12/19/2025||
Ha! I almost posted this here but I thought maybe I was posting too many music videos on HN.

I am part of the LOAD "*", 8, 1 generation, and this is really freaking cool.

One of the funniest things in the video is the variety of neck tie configurations, one for each part.

jachee 12/20/2025|

    LOADING. . .
    READY
    > RUN
layer8 12/19/2025||
It’s probably not a coincidence that the climax starts at 13:37.
Centigonal 12/20/2025|
0% chance that's a coincidence coming from lft
abetusk 12/19/2025||
For anyone wanting to know, the keyboard layout is that of a chromatic button accordian [0] [1].

I guess there's a C64 "executable" that he's made available but no source so I don't know what the exact keymapping is. I did find a few different resources that show the layout in action [2] [3].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwsZ41pA_Vo&t=58s

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_button_accordion

[2] https://okathira-dev.github.io/client-web-api-sandbox/button...

[3] https://www.rmwinslow.com/tones/

B1FF_PSUVM 12/20/2025||
Why do I get reminded of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells?

(Yes, I've heard the Ravel before, I mean the presentation style, e.g. Oldfield: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdMtqKZ6GrY )

guenthert 12/20/2025|
I too was waiting for the 'grand together' announcement.
kkkqkqkqkqlqlql 12/19/2025||
> 0 regrets

That's the most important number in stores like this one.

emptybits 12/20/2025||
Yes! Linus must really burn himself up, conceiving and executing masterworks like this! But saying "0 regrets" hopefully means he hasn't lost motivation for his next crazy project!
lll-o-lll 12/20/2025||
Had to check the article because I read that as “greater than zero regrets”.

<= 0 regrets

drivers99 12/19/2025||
Listened to this exact video this morning when it was among the newest videos in my YouTube subscriptions. I've had it stuck in my head since then.
Eupolemos 12/20/2025|
Did you hear his "A mind is born"? It is amazing outright, IMHO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8

drivers99 12/21/2025||
I forgot he was the same person who did that! I was somewhat obsessed with it earlier this year. I had found a version you can type into BASIC that pokes it into a block of memory and jumps to it, since I have access to a C64 at a hackerspace that doesn't have a floppy drive, so I've run it at least once on real hardware. (I have a new C64 Ultimate on the way as well.)
tantalor 12/19/2025||
Several mentions of "the automaton" but no idea what that is. It's a bit vague.

The photo of "the automaton" appears to be a melamine white particleboard panel.

https://www.linusakesson.net/music/bolero/boxes-large.jpg

Sharlin 12/19/2025|
It's the "percussion section" https://linusakesson.net/music/bolero/automaton-large.jpg
arthurdenture 12/19/2025|
This is way more pleasant than the kazoo version by famous children's author Sandra Boynton. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U14IBek-wNU
themadturk 12/20/2025|
Though when things really break out into harmony after the 12 minute mark, it's almost pretty.

(Sandra Boynton is amazing, no matter what she does.)

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