Intuitive music

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Intuitive music is music that arises entirely from intuition and from the moment. The term is used to describe the type of music which aims to make pre-rational experiences and ways of living audible and which, due to this objective, cannot be classified into the traditional categories of music. In many cases, improvisational music that does not follow any prefabricated concepts or rules is viewed as intuitive music, especially in free improvisation as practiced in free jazz (but the two terms are more aimed at different styles of music and should therefore cannot be used synonymously).

Theoretical foundations

In general, any type of music can be understood as an activity or product of creative people based on intuition. "What do I experience when I turn my gaze inward, listen inside and sense inside myself", is the basic question according to Thomas Gonschior. Intuition is considered to be a central prerequisite for the creation of any kind of art, although in the case of music it must be said, "that the concept of intuition, which is aimed at empathy, is primarily one of the culture of interpretation". For example, when a pianist plays a work by Beethoven, his intuition is challenged with the spirit of the work or the composer. “The interpreter ... must intuitively implement the composer's inspiration in his performance. And one must not forget that the intuitive moment also belongs to those who hear the music. "

History and pioneer

The jazz musician Lennie Tristano had already advertised his concerts with "Lennie Tristano and his Intuitive Music" in the 1950s, but it was Karlheinz Stockhausen who first made the term intuitive music into the consciousness of a larger audience in Europe and became an indication of a changed self-image a young generation of innovative musicians. In his piece “From the Seven Days” (1968), the musicians were given short text fragments as the only instructions for tuning in, and then playing from intuition. The associated freedom in implementation should not be understood as a license for random interpretations. Stockhausen was not looking for “indeterminacy”, but “intuitive determination” from which creative music should develop organically. For him, the player's intuitive music is very closely linked to their self-control and self-criticism.

With his approach, Stockhausen softened the boundaries to pieces of music composed in the conventional sense. Until then, the opus, which was usually put on paper by a single author and thus became unmistakable, was the norm, but since then the unique and unfixed acoustic event has claimed the same status. The fact that this can also involve economic aspects becomes clear from GEMA's reaction to include an extra heading in its distribution plan for this phenomenon that arose in the 1970s for “works of a wholly or predominantly improvisational character and music that cannot be classified in any other way “Set up.

Intuition also plays a central role in the music of the composer and pianist Peter Michael Hamel . Numerous study trips had taken him to the most diverse countries in Asia and Africa, where he was able to experience for himself, in interaction with musicians on site, how "the sparks of clairvoyant perception jumped over in the state of opening". “The intuitive moment when making music, however, is not programmable, even if a group treads a spiritual-spiritual path for years, each for themselves or all together.” In the series of his compositions, the version of mandala recorded by Hamel in 1972 is most clearly recognizable what the term intuitive music implies.

Stockhausen's idea of ​​intuitive music has not only purely artistic but also socio-political dimensions. In 1980, in an environment of intellectual lack of freedom and social constraints, the “Ensemble for Intuitive Music Weimar” set an example for the willingness of young musicians to break new ground, who with their programs “gave the performers scope for creative design”. By considering it “necessary and attractive” to “enter taboo and undesirable territory”, they organized “over 100 concerts with his [ie Stockhausen's] music in the GDR up to the 'turning autumn 1989'.” The individual players in the Ensemble not only compositionally novel models, but also opened up unusual venues for their concerts. After the opening of the border, the group went on tours abroad and recorded with their sounds and the like. a. a lava field in Mexico City. Under the title “Klangschacht Sondershausen”, a concert hall milled 670 meters underground into the salt dome became a place of synaesthetic experience. In Meiningen, 16 hot-air balloon burners, dancers, choir, ensemble and tape based on an idea by Hans Tutschku , a founding member of the ensemble, made the English Garden a multi-sensory spectacle with all the senses.

From 2000 to 2010 Markus Stockhausen organized a concert series with intuitive music in Cologne. He further developed the understanding of intuitive music compared to Karlheinz Stockhausen and does not set any stylistic limits, also allows “harmonic, melodic and rhythmic-periodic music.” In contrast to improvised music, “here it is about an intensely intuitive creative process,” which “arises the inner spirit ”concentrates“ that guides the musician or musicians. ” For him, intuitive music also means “ that the musician surrenders himself to hearing, imagination, and the moment and invents music out of his intuition. This is a clear difference to improvisation, which usually means a variation of known and previously determined material. In intuitive music, everything should be able to occur that wants to express itself in the now. "

Ensembles and musicians

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Gonschior: On the traces of intution , Munich (Herbig-Verlag) 2013.
  2. ↑ a b Siegfried Mauser , in: Thomas Gonschior: On the trail of intution , Munich (Herbig-Verlag) 2013, p. 44.
  3. ↑ See the fundamental analysis by Carl Bergstrøm-Nielsen (2006): www.stockhausensociety.org/intuitive-music.htm
  4. ↑ In addition, he also had the idea of ​​an instrumental controllability of inventive, creative achievement. See also Beate Kutschke Neue Linke / Neue Musik: cultural theories and artistic avant-garde in the 1960s and 70s (music - culture - gender) Böhlau, Cologne 2007. pp. 114ff.
  5. ↑ Quoted from GEMA's distribution plan in the current version (2015), p. 342.
  6. ↑ Peter Michael Hamel: Through music to the self; Bern / Munich / Vienna (Scherz-Verlag) 1976; quoted from the paperback edition dtv / Bärenreiter 1980, p. 41 ff.
  7. ↑ Reinhard Flender Free Ensembles for New Music in Germany: a study by the Institute for Cultural Innovation Research at the University of Music and Theater Hamburg Schott, Mainz 2007, p. 92ff. and http://www.neue-musik-thueringen.de/html/efim.html
  8. ↑ Markus Stockhausen in the liner notes on Markus Stockhausen, Tara Bouman , Stefano Scodanibbio , Fabrizio Ottaviucci , Mark Nauseef Spaces & Spheres: Intuitive Music , p. 5f.
  9. ↑ Quotation from Koelnkonzerte.de
  10. ↑ The Mud Cavaliers

Web links