Honoring The Sensei #2 - Hans Cnossen

Kept you waiting, huh?

This is the second edition of a series in which I will showcase a selection of favorite songs from my old mentors.
Starting with tracking as an aspiring 15-year old chiptune composer, sometime in 1995, knowing only MML before, some music veterans of the MSX scene took me under their wings and taught me a lot of what I know today.
This series is meant to express my gratitude for this and to show everyone how awesome their music actually was.

There is no special reason behind the order of the songs, they're just aligned in a way that I thought sounds nice. Even if it's a difficult task, I will try to keep it at five songs per "sensei".
Also, to convey the timeframe and -spirit as accurately as possible, I will keep it to their MB-Stereo (8-bit) work.

This second episode is dedicated to Hans Cnossen, also known as "Kid Cnoz", as was the 'stage name' jokingly endowed upon him.
After mister Meits, my first sensei, had taught me the basics of tracking, along with some chiptuning tricks, I came into contact with Hans.
As we exchanged songs, yes, still using 'snail mail', but also in person, he taught me some important composition techniques along the way.
The most important of those being, that the melody is the most important component of a song, and that it should always be on the foreground to shine.
I used to make a big deal of the accompaniment, because of my inherent fear that the music would otherwise be 'boring' to the listener.
While I'm still far from where I want to be after all these years, Cnossen showed me the right path back then.

It was an extremely tough job to select only 5 songs from sensei Cnossen, in order to showcase his wide range of music styles and overall versatility.
The picture in this video is a tribute to the Moonblaster 1.4 instrument preset which he seemed to have an obsession with - the "Laser Harp".
Thanks for everything, Hans!

I hope you will enjoy this second issue of "Honoring the Sensei" and thay you'd maybe look forward to the next one. Who'll be next? I already know, but you'll just have to find that out...

Link to the previous edition:
   • Honoring the Sensei #1 - Meits