Ssolo
. : for viola da gamba and computer






Ssolo (2002) was composed for Karin Preslmayr as part of a cycle of works written for various solo instruments and a real-time computer accompaniment. The approach to this specific medium holds the uniqueness of live performance and the beauty of transformation as its central theme. In these pieces a computer will typically await for the instruments signal to reply with transformations and refractions of the acoustic instrument. To do this, methods of analysis are used to register pitch and dynamics coming from the performers instrument. When an expected pitch or dynamic is reached the computer then responds by triggering through a sequence of musical events, filters or processes.

A secondary theme found underlining this piece involves the exploration of controlled improvisation as a way to involve the performers expressive potentials and stress the composer/performer relation. In the score for Ssolo improvised sections consist of descriptions to the performer leaving only musical triggers which the performer can then cross at will and which the computer the recognizes and then reacts.

Ssolo was composed and developed at the Institute for Sonology in The Hague.