Karlheinz Stockhausen Quotes

• I'm an adventurer. I like invention, I like discovery.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Inspiring, Discovery, Invention

  51 Copy quote

• I became aware that all sounds can make meaningful language.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Meaningful, Sound, Language

  12 Copy quote

• Being quiet and meditating on sound is something completely different and will be discovered very soon by a lot of people who feel that the visual world doesn't reach their soul anymore.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  People, Soul, Sound

  22 Copy quote

• The September 11 attacks were the greatest work of art in the cosmos...compared to that, we composers are nothing

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Art, September 11, Cosmos

  16 Copy quote

• Music is mathematics, the mathematics of listening, mathematics for the ears.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Listening, Ears, Mathematics

  Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mya Tannenbaum (1987). “Conversations with Stockhausen”, Oxford University Press, USA

  12 Copy quote

• When a certain piece of music penetrates a person, a resonance is set in motion and an inner voice says: "I like this resonance. It elevates me. It develops hitherto unknown possibilities in me. I don't recognize myself. This is very interesting.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Voice, Interesting, Pieces

  10 Copy quote

• We are no longer the same after hearing certain sounds, and this is more the case when we hear organized sounds, sounds organized by another human being: music.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Sound, Hearing, Cases

  13 Copy quote

• Repetition is based on body rhythms, so we identify with the heartbeat, or with walking, or with breathing.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Heart, Walking Away, Breathing

  14 Copy quote

• In particular what is most important to me is the transformation of a sound by slowing it down, sometimes extremely, so that the inner of sound becomes a conceivable rhythm.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Important, Sound, Transformation

  12 Copy quote

• I no longer limit myself.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Limits

  8 Copy quote

• And harmony means that the relationship between all the elements used in a composition is balanced, is good.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Relationship, Mean, Elements

  9 Copy quote

• And I'm always interested when other musicians are trying to discover new worlds of sound.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Trying, Musician, Sound

  7 Copy quote

• Or the other process that is important is that I compress longer sections of composed music, either found or made by myself, to such an extent that the rhythm becomes a timbre, and formal subdivisions become rhythm.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Important, Timbre, Formal

  8 Copy quote

• So there is a personal sense of style for a given work - I don't like a general style, but every work has its own style, and I want to create a style for every work.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Style, Want, Given

  9 Copy quote

• It is true that the eyes dominate the ears in our time.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Eye, Ears, Our Time

  9 Copy quote

• One experiments and has to choose always the best results.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Results, Experiments

  8 Copy quote

• Whenever I felt happy about having discovered something, the first encounter, not only with the public, with other musicians, with specialists, etc, was that they rejected it.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Firsts, Etc, Musician

  8 Copy quote

• I was horrible at everything I ever tried to do and people respect me. The American Dream has come true!!

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Dream, People, Respect Me

  7 Copy quote

• And I'll never forget the first time I took the possibility to project sound every day for six or seven hours with special devices which were built for me.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Special, Sound, Firsts

  8 Copy quote

• Since I started composing I have always worked with series of tempos, even superimposed the music of different groups of musicians, of singers, instrumentalists who play and sing in different tempos simultaneously and then meet every now and then in the same tempo.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Play, Singers, Musician

  52 Copy quote

• Or in other works I have also projected the sound in a cube of loudspeakers. The sound can move vertically and diagonally at all speeds around the public.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Moving, Sound, Cubes

  8 Copy quote

• But since the middle of the century in particular, the music has become very irregular in rhythm.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Century, Middle, Rhythm

  7 Copy quote

• And the invention of transformations of certain figures has become the most important in musical composition.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Musical, Important, Transformation

  7 Copy quote

• No, what is important is neither linearity or non-linearity, but the change, the degree of change from something that doesn't move to other events with different tempos in particular.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Moving, Important, Events

  5 Copy quote

• I spent most of the year in the studio for electronic music at a radio station in Cologne or in other studios where I produced new works with all kinds of electronic apparatus.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Years, Radio, New Work

  17 Copy quote

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