Claynote

Claynote is unique. We love music, and want to make full use of its potential.

That's why we like to get involved in your projects as much as we can, so we can make the music as fitting as possible. We believe that almost any experience (playing a game, walking through a museum or arriving at a hotel) can be improved and intensified by adding the right music at the right time.

We don't just compose and produce music: We try to help determine what the music should achieve, so the music can be finetuned to its desired purpose and context.

Claynote consists of Jakko ter Borg and Rik Nieuwdorp, who have been working together since 2006, when they met in their final years at the Utrecht School of Arts (HKU).

There, the extensive research and prototyping experiments regarding adaptive music formed the basis of their current expertise on the design of adaptive music systems and its music composition techniques.

Jakko ter Borg

Jakko ter Borg has been writing songs from the age of seven and has a Master of Arts in the field of Music Production and Composition. During his third year of his Master course he designed the foundations of what would later become the infamous G.A.M.E. system for adaptive music in games as presented to Guerilla Games and supervisors at the HKU. His final paper on how to instruct composers to compose music for G.A.M.E. and similar adaptive music systems completed his research at the HKU.

Rik Nieuwdorp

Ever since he has been able to hear, Rik has been obsessed with music. It has played an enormous role throughout his youth, and is now a much appreciated part of his professional life.

Rik has a university degree in architecture, is a qualified audio engineer and a Master of Arts in the field of Music Technology. He loves to combine these qualities. During his Internship at the Interactive Institute (Sweden) in 2005, he devised and composed an adaptive music system for a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game wherein the emotions of the player character alter the game's music. After writing a short paper about this experiment, Rik and his internship supervisors were invited to present their ideas at the ACM SIGCHI ACE2006 (International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology) in Hollywood. Ever since then, he has devoted his time to designing adaptive music systems, composing music and concocting kooky game concepts.

Early 2009, Jakko and Rik decided it was time to officially team up and form Claynote, composing sweet tunes with the optional extra of an adaptive music system. Within Claynote, Rik represents the more structural development and logical thoroughness as opposed to Jakko's creative spontaneity and sharp eye for the final product. This ying-yang structure has proven to bring out the best of both worlds.