In addition, much of the software was updated to 64-bit, which positively impacted RAM usage and allowed playback of even larger files. Typical of Black MIDI’s early style, the video features a traditionally notated two-stave piano score rather than a MIDI piano scroll alone.Īs computer-processing power increased, Black MIDIs also became larger and included more notes than before. It was not until 2011 that the genre took off in the West, the first major hit being this upload by YouTube user Kakakakaito1998. The use of Japanese video game music has since remained iconic to Black MIDI.įor the next couple of years, Black MIDI spilled over from Japan into China and Korea, where it continued to grow. Owen Was Her?, the theme song from the extra boss level in the Touhou Project, a vertically scrolling Japanese shooter video game. The origin of Black MIDI can be traced back to Japan in 2009 when the first blacker, Shirasagi Yukki Kuro Yuki Gohan, created the first black MIDI and uploaded it to the Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga. “We try to make it insane-but not too insane,” says Jason Nguyen, the person behind the major Black MIDI distribution YouTube channel Gingeas. The goal of Black MIDI is to approach this processing failure without actually crossing that line. The increased density of notes also affects the computer, which is sometimes unable to process all of the notes within a particularly complex section. The term “ Black MIDI” refers to the moments in a piece where the notes, if displayed on a traditional two-stave piano score, are so dense that there appears to be just a mass of black noteheads.

Black MIDI is presented on YouTube as a video recording of a MIDI file containing millions of individual notes played back through a sequencer.

Created by self-proclaimed “blackers,” Black MIDI exists almost exclusively on YouTube in the English-speaking world, with total video views numbering in the millions while total subscribers for teams (groups of blackers who collaborate on Black MIDI tracks) remain less than 50,000. Perhaps one of the most fascinating niche genres to recently surface is Black MIDI. The result is the emergence of countless niche genres, each with its own unique following. As more and more people are creating music, they are subjugated less and less to the genre-defining artists of the status quo. However, in the last two decades there has been a blossoming of niche music genres, made possible by technological advancements such as personal computers and Digital Audio Workstations as well as decreasing costs to build home studios and widespread use of the internet. They existed before hipsters, before Stravinsky, and before Mozart.

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