Increasing the mobility of Stockhausen’s Mobile Scores
Stockhausen compositions pioneered a wide range of the innovatve techniques that have come to be associate d with the Avant Garde Period. In the exploration of formal structure and the means of presenting work to performers via novel media, Stockhausen was one of the key contributors during this time.
These innovations included:
• The “mobile” score
• The “transformative” score
• Intuitive music
Despite the fact that Stockhausen lived well into the first decade of the 21st century, all of his works rely on the traditional notion of a printed paper score.
This discussion explores the technical and practical possibilities of adapting the innovative printed scores by Stockhausen through the use of computer technology. The technological recasting of these works is considered in light of Stockhausen’s own aesthetic statements concerning the necessity to comprehend the “uniqueness” of works which were born to a particular historical moment.
2. Increasing the mobility of Stockhausen’s Mobile Scores
Stockhausen composi0ons pioneered a wide range of the innova0ve techniques that
have come to be associate with the Avant Garde Period. In the explora0on of formal
structure and the means of presen0ng work to performers via novel media, Stockhausen
was one of the key contributors during this 0me.
These innova0ons included:
• The “mobile” score
• The “transforma0ve” score
• Intui0ve music
Despite the fact that Stockhausen lived well into the first decade of the 21st century, all of
his works rely on the tradi0onal no0on of a printed paper score.
This discussion explores the technical and prac0cal possibili0es of adap0ng the
innova0ve printed scores by Stockhausen through the use of computer technology. The
technological recas0ng of these works is considered in light of Stockhausen’s own
aesthe0c statements concerning the necessity to comprehend the “uniqueness” of works
which were born to a par0cular historical moment.
10. IntuiIve Music
"It is no longer sufficient to expand the musical work - the opus - to a process, to a
growing, self-transforming thing which unfolds at every moment, in the Here and Now;
we have realized instead that the multitude of discoverable processes also leads to yet
more basic, higher powers of formation that are in fact superrational, intuitive in
origin.”
Stockhausen described this approach as:
Opening one's mind in order to receive more vibrations from the universe than one
normally does. (Coenen 1994 pp. 210‐211)
There’s a story of a second violin player who
said, “Herr Stockhausen, how will I know when
I am playing in the rhythm of the universe?”
Stockhausen said, with a smile, “I will tell you.”
(Anthony Pay in Bailey 1992 p. 72)
11. IntuiIve Music
"It is no longer sufficient to expand the musical work - the opus - to a process, to a
growing, self-transforming thing which unfolds at every moment, in the Here and Now;
we have realized instead that the multitude of discoverable processes also leads to
yet more basic, higher powers of formation that are in fact superrational, intuitive in
origin.”
“From the Seven Days” (1969)
13. Mobile Score TransformaIve Scrolling Score Text Score
Polyvalent/Moment Variable Transforma0on Intui0ve
1956 KLAVIERSTÜCK XI
1958 KONTAKTE
1959 ZYKLUS REFRAIN
1962‐4 MOMENTE
1963 PLUS‐MINUS
1964
MIXTUR and
MIKROPHONIE I
1965 MIKROPHONIE II
1965 STOP
1966 SOLO ADIEU
1967 PROZESSION
1968 STIMMUNG SPIRAL
1969 POLE and EXPO
14. Actually Mobile Mobile Scores
The implementation of mobile scores in a computer-based hypertextual
medium may provide a more “natural” vehicle for their performance by:
• creating a more practical, pragmatic medium for presenting
information to the performer;
• preventing performers from preparing a fixed order of the work’s
materials;
• allowing the choice of nonlinear materials based on aleatoric or other
procedures;
• reducing the need for unnecessary cues that create a non-musical
distraction to the performers and/or the performance.
15. Technology and ideology are inextricably intertwined…
what we are dealing with here is yet another example of
the well-known phenomenon of the old artistic forms
pushing against their own boundaries and using
procedures which, at least from our retrospective view,
seem to point towards a new technology that will be able
to serve as a more “natural” and appropriate “objective
correlative” to the life-experience the old forms
endeavoured to render by means of their “excessive”
experiments.
Zizek, S., 2000. The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime.
Seattle: University of Washington Press. p. 39
17. In the case of a paper score however, involuntary choice is the most pragmatic
solution for achieving an aleatoric order of groups. Stockhausen’s stated
motivation for this instruction is ‘that the performer will never link up expressly
chosen groups or intentionally leave out others. Each group can be joined to any
of the other eighteen’
21. I II
1 Mixtur 1 or 5 1 High C 1 or 6
2 Percussion 2 2 Pizzicato 2
3 Blocks 3 or 15 3 Layers 3
4 Direction 4 4 Dialogue 4
5 Change 5 , 14/15 5 Steps 5
6 Calmness 6 6 Concert pitch 6, 18 or 1
7 Vertical 7 7 Brass 6, 16
8 Strings 8 8 Tutti 8
9 Points 9 9 Translation 9
10 Wood 10 10 Mirror 10, 5
11 Mirror 11 or 16 11 Wood 11
12 Translation 12 12 Points 12
13 Tutti 13 13 Strings 13
14 Brass 14 or 5 14 Vertical 14
15 Concert pitch 15 , 3 or 20 15 Calmness 15
16 Steps 16 16 Change 16, 7/6
17 Dialogue 17 17 Direction 17
18 Layers 18 18 Blocks 18, 6
19 Pizzicato 19 19 Percussion 19
20 High C 20 or 15 20 Mixtur 10 or 16
I II
1 Mixtur 1 or 5 1 High C 1 or 6
2 Percussion 2 2 Pizzicato 2
3 Blocks 3 or 15 3 Layers 3
4 Direction 4 4 Dialogue 4
5 Change 5 , 14/15 5 Steps 5
6 Calmness 6 6 Concert pitch 6, 18 or 1
7 Vertical 7 7 Brass 6, 16
8 Strings 8 8 Tutti 8
9 Points 9 9 Translation 9
10 Wood 10 10 Mirror 10, 5
11 Mirror 11 or 16 11 Wood 11
12 Translation 12 12 Points 12
13 Tutti 13 13 Strings 13
14 Brass 14 or 5 14 Vertical 14
15 Concert pitch 15 , 3 or 20 15 Calmness 15
16 Steps 16 16 Change 16, 7/6
17 Dialogue 17 17 Direction 17
18 Layers 18 18 Blocks 18, 6
19 Pizzicato 19 19 Percussion 19
20 High C 20 or 15 20 Mixtur 10 or 16
22. PERC. I
CONDUCTOR
PERC. II PERC. IIII
Woodwind Brass Strings Pizz. Str
Screen 1
Screen 2 Screen 3
Screen 4
Screen 7
Screen 6
Screen 5
Performance set‐up for MIXTUR using networked computers to project the
scores synchronously on 6 screens. Such a method could also automate the
electronic component (Ring‐modula0on of the acous0c instruments) and
perhaps also the conductor via click‐tracks.
23. Stockhausen’s Adieu (1966) ProporIons
In many of Stockhausen’s works he employs the Fibonacci series to govern the temporal
propor0ons.
! " "#$#! "$% %$& &$' '$!% !%$"! "!$%( %($&& &&$') *##!"+,-!.
/!",
! " # $ % !# "! #& $$ %' !&& *#012345#647815
Fibonacci Series Propor0ons in Stockhausen’s Adieu
(Diagram from Kramer 1988 p. 315)
Kramer claims Fibonacci propor0ons to be perceivable and predictable (Kramer 1988 p.
315). In 1990, Clarke and Krumhansl tested this claim and indeed found that “the
listeners were quite veridical in judging the rela0ve dura0ons of the segments” (Clarke, E.
F., Perceiving Musical Time, Music Percep0on, 7:3 p. 236).
32. Stockhausen took the conserva0ve view:
It's extremely important to comprehend works, which were born to a
parGcular historical moment, for their uniqueness… it is my experience of
music that every instrument, every item of equipment, every technique
can produce something unique, which can be achieved in no other way.
Since that is the case, then we can speak of an original technique, and
thus deal with an original instrument.
Simon Emmerson takes a more pragma0c view.
But are we aiming at ‘authenGcity’? Once we embark on such an
enterprise, the regress is infinite. Must we demand original instruments
and original performance pracGce on these instruments? The composer’s
original intenGons may not be inscribed in any single document, in any
medium. The same arguments apply here as in the endless debates on
‘early music interpretaGon’ – except we (may) have the recorded medium
to help us.
The “authen0c instruments” debate in electronic music.