Skip to main content

Listening Report to Karlheinz Stockhausen – Kontakte (Version 12 ½)

 

This piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen is creepy and disturbing in a horror movie kind of way. I do not know how to put all the feelings I experienced while listening to this strange piece into words, but I am going to try. Starting off with the fact that it gave me goosebumps, but not the kind of goosebumps you get when you enjoy something. It's the category of goosebumps you get when someone scratches their fingernails over a blackboard. In between it reminds me again, similar to Water Walk, of a cat running over the piano, only this time the notes were equalized.

But it could also be a child left alone with a keyboard, where you can change the sounds of the piano keys while you are playing it. Then the child plays cheerfully with the keys and creates this interesting piece of so-called music. And the parents are probably very proud of their little Mozart. I hope the sarcasm was clear here.         
 However, this piece of music brings out the worst feelings in me. I understand that Stockhausen was ahead of his time with this form of electronic music. Admittedly, I cannot understand how someone can voluntarily listen to this piece in its full length. I could only imagine it as background music for a science fiction movie or one of those very old black and white horror movies. I probably don't understand enough about music or its theory and therefore I can't quite understand the artistic aspect behind the piece.

Some parts of the piece are giving me a similar feeling like when I just woke up from a nap and have no idea what time it is or what day. This piece makes me angry and I impatiently wait for it to end. It is undoubtedly never going to be one of my favorite musical artworks. Halfway through I had already had enough of this nonsense, but I tried to stay strong and listen until the end.

In fact, this piece caused me physical pain in form of headaches while listening to it. It makes me twitchy, anxious and uncomfortable. In some parts of the piece, I wanted to crawl out of my skin and it made me shiver because it evoked a chilling sensation running down my back. It is like a robot and a horror movie soundtrack composer worked together on this piece to bring out the most annoying ensemble of sounds. Listening to this is literal torture and a half an hour of my life that I cannot get back. It made me furious, and it certainly did not help with my headache. It is for sure an excellent medium if you want to torture somebody. Just let them hear this song over and over again until they are going to buckle and confess everything. I do not want to listen to this piece ever again.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure

 Sarah Kumar Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of (American) Music 06 Mar. 2023 Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure According to John Oswald, “[a] plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded” (Lecture Slides 18). However, only if the source stays recognizable can it be called plunderphonics. In his album Plexure , several songs are played back and mixed together, thus creating a new sound. This is interesting because while the excerpts of songs that are used are recognizable or at least sound familiar to some degree, played backwards and mashed up as they are in Plexure , they create a new sound. Like on the cover of the album, on which a collage making up a man can be seen, the mixing of different songs played backwards gives a new feeling to something known. The way the songs are mixed makes them unintelligible. The meaning of the words of the original recordings are not able to be compr...
Post a Comment
Read more

John Cage – Inlets

  This does not sound like music to me. Depending on the interpretation of different players or performers, this piece will always sound different. In this case, it sounds to me like someone is walking through a cave with water at the bottom, dragging their feet through it. Sometimes it sounds like water in a toilet bowl, especially when we hear the water in a bigger shell being swished around. These sounds are relaxing in the background, it is like a gentle stream of water. I just wonder what went through the head of the composer while writing this piece. But I guess he had some experimental ideas that are interesting to try out. Those shells are quite pretty, I have never seen such big ones that are not broken. I was surprised when something else happened towards the end of the piece. That tone which came out of the one shell was so clear, it sounded like a trumpet. I didn’t know that shells can sound like that. It was quite beautiful. It was a nice way to end the piece. I di...
Post a Comment
Read more

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops III

  The Disintegration Loops is a quartet of albums published in 2002 and 2003 by American avant-garde composer William Basinski. The pieces are made up of tape loop recordings that were played over time, with noise and crackles rising as the tape deteriorated. Basinski noticed this effect when attempting to convert his older recordings to digital format. The completion of the recordings coincided with the September 11, 2001 events, which Basinski witnessed and adds a deeper meaning to the composition. The composition is fascinating in many ways and makes the listener lose track of time. The tape loop recording had a very calming effect on me and put me in a trance-like state when I listened to it in its entirety. The tape loop is really soothing, so much so that I didn't even notice the loss of quality when I first listened to it. It makes you forget about time and allows you to really get into the piece capturing the calmness it exudes. You forget or don't really notice how i...
Post a Comment
Read more