Stockhausen

When I was fifteen I worked in a record shop. One day, in lieu of pay I accepted a 7 album box set of records - Aus Den Sieben Tagen (From The Seven Days) by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was the first in what became a large collection of Stockhausen music. I have never actually undertook my task of listening all of his music that I have in one sitting - it would take 25 hours solid listening.

But I'm not going to tell you about the innovative electronics of Prozession or the hypnotic inevitability of Mantra - I've never bothered with trying to convert anyone to Comtemporary Music so I won't start now. But I will talk a bit about that original 7 record set. Each piece of music was an improvisation based on a piece of text. The fourth piece Gold Dust:

Live completely alone for four days
Without food
In complete silence, without much movement
Sleep as little as possible
Think as little as possible.

After the musicians lived for 4 days without food or human contact (in the same house, by the way) they start to play using various instruments including a sitar, a ship's bell, a saucepan half-filled with water, and a house key. It sure ain't Rock and Roll.

A few years later me and my mate Alan tested out the power of this record. Two girls had come round to see him. For some reason we wanted to get rid of them but without being nasty and actually asking them to leave. Stockhausen came to our rescue, and after 25 minutes of From Aus Den Sieben Tagen they left and never came back.