SSEYO
«Koan»

Koan was developed for use on the net, and interestingly stems from an unusual software concept of one of the godfathers of Avantgarde ideas, namely that of Brian Eno and his idea of Ambient Music from the 1970's with its overlapping mechanical processes whose musical details are uncontrollable.

»A key premise was that much of the musical 'processing' would be carried out by the listener, who would bring to it their own perceptions, situation and 'wetware', so internalising and personalising the experience.« (Tim Cole, SSEYO)

Every presentation or performance of a single piece composed in the authoring software KoanPro is different from any other. Melody, harmony and rhythm are kept variable within a certain, characteristic range by specifying a large number of parameters within the software. To achieve that, new concepts for describing elements of a composition have been developed. For example, the voice type 'Follows' (see illustration) offers several possibilities to imitate other voices. 'Fixed Pattern' (see illustration) allows the accurate notation of melodic lines, however, it can be specified to which percentage of accuracy a line will be realised. Other voice types can also be influenced by the user's interaction via the mouse etc.

Source: Golo Föllmer: Net Music, CD-ROM for Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 165/5, Sept./Oct. 2004

Translation: Thomas Meadowcroft