With Understanding Comes Appreciation
What is sound? Think about all the different possible sounds heard throughout the day. Cars passing by, the chattering of people talking, keys jingling in your pocket, music playing in the grocery store, the microwave humming, the list goes on and on. Whether we are aware of them or not, we are constantly hearing sounds happening all around us. Now, let’s change gears for just a moment as I pose another question. What is time? Time is an interesting concept, used to measure the moments of our lives as we are moving through them. Time can be thought of numerically, graphing out the hours of the day to an individual’s specific schedule; however, oftentimes we find ourselves perceiving time in the future, (when we need to get things done, when we have to get to a certain place), and in the past (through nostalgia, regret, and desire for second chances), but how often is the full attention of the mind concentrated on the moment happening in the present? What if somehow sound could be used as a tool to experience time in this way? Composer Karlheinz Stockhausen takes this idea of perceiving time as it occurs in his piece "Kontakte," where he experiments with untraditional uses of sounds, form, and spatial positioning.
Among all the geniuses of the avant-garde, one of the greatest and one of the most important is undoubtedly the famous German composer: Karlheinz Stockhausen. He is even often considered as one of the greatest composer of the 20th century, if not of all the history of music, yes! you read that well. Very controversial and highly misunderstood at the time; nevertheless time and hindsight have helped to convince everyone that his impact and legacy was so essential (and still is today) to the evolution of music, including mainly all that has a link with electronic music. In the popular sphere, Karlheinz Stockhausen is an unknown, who is regarded as an intellectual and one of those crazy creators. Logically, this is not the kind of character that a listener who doesn't really have an artistic sensibility is going to dig into and find out about his career and his works. However, in the shadow of many, Karlheinz Stockhausen is for me one of those geniuses, who worked silently and who, I repeat, revolutionized music as few people do.