NOTATION WITHOUT SIMBOLS: AUS DEN SIEBEN TAGEN

Abstract

Karlheinz Stockhausen's intuitive music continues to intrigue musicologists with its novel approach to all musical parameters. Lack of standard music notation and the presence of sensorially‐ augmented performance instructions as well as a new way to approach music education and sound production point to the possiblity of a notation system devoid of graphical symbols in the old sense, but based on a new set of notational parameters that are no longer subject to limitations. A parallel between Stockhausen and Musk is drawn in order to make a case for the human singularity as an ancient sound‐ technology hidden behind what can be understood as an absolute notation system. Accused of writing music that is impossible to play, Stockhausen, in fact, explores in Aus den sieben Tagen the transcendent capabilities of the sound, not as a metaphor but as a truthful exercise in achieving one’s maximum potential, both artistically and as a human being.