Stockhausen's "Studie I"

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What amazes me about this 1952 work (composed completely with sine waves) is how different and what-the-fuck it still sounds 50 years later. It's ethereal and foreign -- like medieval church bells in a long-lost underwater empire. And its impact on my ears is so much more immediate than a lot of current electronic music (or even '60s Moog music, much of which was produced for and marketed to a pop-consuming, Reader's Digest-subscribing audience that found the technology cool in an isn't-this-interesting-honey World's Fair sorta way).

I can't find much about this piece online -- can someone direct me to some good commentary?

And if you've got two cents to spare on the subject, toss it into the fountain...

― Jody Beth Rosen, Friday, 30 August 2002 04:54 (twenty-three years ago)

''And its impact on my ears is so much more immediate than a lot of current electronic music (or even '60s Moog music, much of which was produced for and marketed to a pop-consuming, Reader's Digest-subscribing audience that found the technology cool in an isn't-this-interesting-honey World's Fair sorta way).''

Jody is my nu-goddess for the day. Yeah, listening to some Xenakis and i enjoy his stuff than a lot of elelctronic music.

But i suggest you try Ryoji Ikeda's +/-. Those tones got under my skin for sure.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 30 August 2002 05:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Which Xenakis? I fell asleep listening to Electronic Music last night and woke up in a cold sweat, feeling very disoriented.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Friday, 30 August 2002 06:05 (twenty-three years ago)

i gree jody beth but have to go to work now: KS worked long long long on making the sounds of his 50s electronic pieces, in an underground bunker at night = they all sound fab but he lost all his marbles

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 30 August 2002 06:51 (twenty-three years ago)

I agree too. :)

Here's a not bad commentary on Studie I and other works from the same period. Link

I heard the piece for first time in a Barbican Hall (London) concert last autumn, diffused by Karlheinz himself. I'll dig out the programme notes over the weekend, see if he had anything profound to say about the composition there. I remember also that he spoke about this piece and others at the concert prior to playing them. These "talks" were recorded by BBC radio 3 and they used to be available to listen to online at the link below. However, I couldn’t get to the page just now – the link may be dead now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/world/elekstock.shtml

― zebedee, Friday, 30 August 2002 07:11 (twenty-three years ago)

''Which Xenakis? I fell asleep listening to Electronic Music last night and woke up in a cold sweat, feeling very disoriented.''

that Xenakis. will revive the thread on the big X tonight or tomorrow.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 30 August 2002 08:34 (twenty-three years ago)

i want to see ppl disagreeing with this and sticking up for techno and 'intelligent' dance music. i want ppl to try and say what's so good about it.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 30 August 2002 08:35 (twenty-three years ago)

george gosset to thread!! oh wait...

(dancing to stockhausen or xenakis is not to advised... i wuv em both, but this is def.music from the Afraid of the Middle of yr Bodies school...)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 30 August 2002 08:44 (twenty-three years ago)

i like em for their sheer compelling drama ... so much of today's meek electronicaneers use tech as a dissembler both with their characters (ie kreblach 4's new LP "orxemplectc") and also with their lack of impetus, ie humongous overarching concepts. I may not actively identify with xenakis' architecture/math etc but the fact that it's there gives it a kind of awesome amor fou force that (paradoxically?)enlivens like the best dance music. funny that so much of today's charming, supposedly more humanist "bedroom" clatter should feel so academic. (in both senses...)

ps julio what a tease you are. have you heard ryoji ikeda + carsten nicolai's cyclo collaboration? it may dislodge yr dormant booty

― bob zemko (bob), Friday, 30 August 2002 09:59 (twenty-three years ago)

wtf how can i have concocted "electronicaneers" BEFORE my morning coffee? disregard!

― bob zemko (bob), Friday, 30 August 2002 10:01 (twenty-three years ago)

But i suggest you try Ryoji Ikeda's +/-. Those tones got under my skin for sure.

This is totally dance music. For mosquitos.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Friday, 30 August 2002 13:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Stockhausen has as much (or as little) in common w/ 'techno' as Charlie Christian has w/ Hendrix - ie similar instruments and sounds, but v. diff musical strategies, intentions, audiences, packaging, marketing, reception etc. etc. It's not esp. 'useful' to make such comparisons because both of 'em can do things that the other can't or won't do - it's like saying "bah, the Rolling Stones are rub because they are not as 'serious'/cosmic/heavy/free/whatever as the Blue Humans". Why not have both?

Haven't heard the piece in question (I want to now), and only really know 'Kontakte' that well - but I love the sound of sine waves (LaMonte Young, Otomo Yoshihide/Saichiko M blah blah), and I love Mark's description of Ks going mad in his bonkers bunker. I do sort've regret the loss of that 'hands-on', splicing and dicing techniuqe, although JBR seems a little dismissive of the 'novelty' aspect of 60s electronica - what's wrong w/ suburban squares wigging out to Perrey and Kingsley?

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Friday, 30 August 2002 13:27 (twenty-three years ago)

although JBR seems a little dismissive of the 'novelty' aspect of 60s electronica - what's wrong w/ suburban squares wigging out to Perrey and Kingsley?

Nuttin' at all! I've got a zillion of those records!

― Jody Beth Rosen, Friday, 30 August 2002 13:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Re: novelty 60s electronica -- and there was Raymond Scott, who by all accounts should have been novelty, and yet wasn't.

― dleone (dleone), Friday, 30 August 2002 13:35 (twenty-three years ago)

"dancing to stockhausen"

If its got Helicopters in it, Im dancing to it.

― Sandy Blair, Friday, 30 August 2002 17:32 (twenty-three years ago)

''i wuv em both, but this is def.music from the Afraid of the Middle of yr Bodies school''

Not afraid to dance, the thing that I see it that there is all this pretension by calling something 'intelligence dance music' (some higher, more civilised form of dance music) when it is dance.

I find a lot of techno hard to listen to at home. I would rather dance to it instead.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:02 (twenty-three years ago)

''julio what a tease you are. have you heard ryoji ikeda + carsten nicolai's cyclo collaboration? it may dislodge yr dormant booty''

The tones are great, I can't see anybody dancing to it (not saying it is better than dance/techno but I get more out of it from a listening perspective).

having said that i haven't heard Ikeda w/cyclo. something to get.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:08 (twenty-three years ago)

there is all this pretension by calling something 'intelligence dance music' (some higher, more civilised form of dance music) when it is dance.

Agreed. It's either dance music or it's not, and if it's not, call it something else.

I find a lot of IDM hard to dance to. Who the hell can dance to Plaid?

― Jody Beth Rosen, Friday, 30 August 2002 18:10 (twenty-three years ago)

''Stockhausen has as much (or as little) in common w/ 'techno' as Charlie Christian has w/ Hendrix - ie similar instruments and sounds, but v. diff musical strategies, intentions, audiences, packaging, marketing, reception etc. etc. It's not esp. 'useful' to make such comparisons because both of 'em can do things that the other can't or won't do - it's like saying "bah, the Rolling Stones are rub because they are not as 'serious'/cosmic/heavy/free/whatever as the Blue Humans".''

I think there are connections between jazz and rock and so on. I do think you can compare both.

But even if you couldn't we must try and fake it. This could lead to many ppl listening to the blue humans. They might think twice about forming bands in the future. or ppl might be inspired by it.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:14 (twenty-three years ago)

funnily enough today I went to selectadisc to look for the newly released Ramleh singles collection (rough trade was closes at 6pm on friday, I think). I asked the guy (no we haven't, what a fucking surprise) but the guy next to me bought a copy of Xenakis' Legend d'er, which is nice (as they say on the fast show).

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:17 (twenty-three years ago)

''I find a lot of IDM hard to dance to. Who the hell can dance to Plaid?''

Plaid have been around for longer than the term 'IDM', but a lot of the warp ppl were lumped in.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:19 (twenty-three years ago)

i realise that idm is a hateful provocative moniker but spare a thought for its origins, ie warp's artificial intelligence compilations, which were all "chillout" homebody orientated anyway. it is not quite that a rogue faction jumped up and said "this dance is much smarter than that dance"

― bob zemko (bob), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:57 (twenty-three years ago)

(even tho, granted, some idiots have appropriated it thus)

― bob zemko (bob), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:57 (twenty-three years ago)

''(even tho, granted, some idiots have appropriated it thus)''

it was going to lead to that route once you start saying some 'sounds' are more 'intelligent' than others.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 30 August 2002 19:04 (twenty-three years ago)

hmm? but who said that julio?

― bob zemko (bob), Friday, 30 August 2002 19:58 (twenty-three years ago)

OH WAIT SORRY now i think i see. well it wasn't so much that warp were intimating that their (at the time non-dance) sounds were intelligent; they used it cos they had a robot blazing a zoot on the cover... hence artificial intelligence ho ho. but i suppose you could say it caught on to the bedroom=cerebral vibe anyways so it doesn't really matter what they intended to begin with. either way just wanted to emphasise that IDM artistes rarely endorse the tag, it's more of a solipsistic fanboy distortion.

― bob zemko (bob), Friday, 30 August 2002 20:05 (twenty-three years ago)

'Squance' by Plaid is kinda danceable...albeit a very strict militaristic dance

― blueski, Friday, 30 August 2002 20:42 (twenty-three years ago)

''I find a lot of techno hard to listen to at home. I would rather dance to it instead.''

gonna quote myself here. Techno has such rigid structures that's kinda hard to see how I could dance to it.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 31 August 2002 06:55 (twenty-three years ago)

what? you must be mental! plaid make (or made) the funkiest shit around! i used to be of the opinion that there was really genuinely nothing better to go to than a plaid gig cos it was guaranteed to be the best dancefloor action you'd get. dont bother assuming that x or y is undanceable. maybe you need to see venetian snares. i've seen people dancing to that and fucking loving it. years ago, on the warp message board, someone said the same thing about autechre, and when i said that they were wicked to dance to ,they told me to see them a video to prove it...the 'undanceble' tag is so pointless that it should be outlawed. for instance, i cant imagine how people would dance to nirvana or sum 41, but its patenetly obvious that millions do...

― ambrose (ambrose), Saturday, 31 August 2002 17:08 (twenty-three years ago)

with nirvana and sum 41 I think they jump around to it.

but how the fuck should i know.

this dance or not thing just comes from listening to some of the recs...I raraely go to clubs and gigs.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 31 August 2002 21:08 (twenty-three years ago)

When I saw Plaid it actually sort of felt like the venue had turned into a club.

― sundar subramanian, Saturday, 31 August 2002 21:13 (twenty-three years ago)

what? you must be mental!

I am.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Saturday, 31 August 2002 21:26 (twenty-three years ago)

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