How do you begin to study the intuitive text compositions from Aus den sieben tagen or Für kommende Zeiten?
Drama students and dance students nowadays routinely go through encounter groups or practice sessions in which they role-play and develop their mental training. All musicians should learn from this kind of work. The text pieces are frameworks for meditation that relate directly to Stockhausen’s fully-composed works. You have to be serious. And by being serious you do become aware when something magical is happening. What Stockhausen says is quite true. It is also true that some musicians get very uptight and their worst natures emerge, just as in method acting you really become the part you play. That can be difficult, but you learn from it. I’m interested too in the climate of expectancy that you get in intuitive music, because if you translate that sense of readiness to Stockhausen’s composed music such as LICHT you enjoy the unexpectedness of it so much more.
