Karlheinz Stockhausen - Oktophonie (Stereo) 1991 Part 1/5

Karlheinz Stockhausen's 'Oktophonie' is a collection of music in 99 pieces (here, tracks) based around the idea of aleatoricism and makes up the music for 'Tuesday' in Stockhausen's 'Light' series. It is utterly bizarre.

As the cover illustrates, the music is designed to physically explore the space in which it is played:

The octophonic spatial composition cannot be reproduced un a stereophonic mix. Those who want to experience the original spatial composition must therefore hear a performance of OCTOPHONY with the correct loudspeaker distribution. At the moment, there are scarcely any halls in which this is possible. The opera hall in Leipzig was 14 meters [42 feet] high and thus well suited for the performance of TUESDAY from LIGHT (1993), but the seats below and on the balcony could not be used. It is hoped that, in the foreseeable future, halls will be built which allow an all-round electroacoustic installation, enabling omni-directional sound movements, as was the case at the 1970 World Fair in Osaka. [...]
The 8 simultaneous movement-layers have, however, been preserved in the stereo version of OCTOPHONY, and none of the stereo versions of other woks (GESANG der JÜNGLINGE, KONTAKTE, HYMNEN, or SIRIUS) are so directionally polyphonic, three-dimensional in their movements, outer-spacious, or flight-dreamy as that of OCTOPHONY.
One of the reasons for this is that -- after countless experiments -- I discovered a new way to convert the octophonic movements into stereophonic movements. This discovery surprised me even after decades of stereo mixing. It is recommended, when listening repeatedly, also to listen to the whole composition over earphones. Whoever can, should place 4 loudspeakers in the four corners of an almost square room and play back the two tracks over 2 loudspeakers at the left and 2 at the right -- if possible, not softer than circa 80 phone. You will be amazed!
-- Karlheinz Stockhausen

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[uluriak]

In the case of octophonic recording, what does go through the eight speakers, eight times the same input or eight different parts of the input. Also, if correct octophony is the output distributed through eight speakers, when Stockhausen describes the stereophonic effects obtained by placing the speakers in a certain way, well if the sound is coming through eight speakers disposed the way he describes, isn't that octophony? When is octophony a stereophonic effect?

[seb84mewstrucci]

@uluriak. Stockhausens octophonic idea based on the procedure, where the sound is surrounding you in a cube with boxes at the top and below from the audience and not just with speakers arround you in the same height. And this work is a formula composition with 8 layers, which can be moved through this cube by an audio engineer (Stockhausen himself in his lifetime) in a concert.. In the stereoversion, where the 8 layers are divided on the two channels, was just produced for cd.

[seb84mewstrucci]

@seb84mewstrucci you can see an image of the cube in this video at aprox. 07:30 Min.

[Eaglejorge]

Hi, thanks for the music, I read that somehow K. Stockhausen was able to reproduce more than stereo sound in a stereo "tape". In interviews he recommended to use headphones to get a better grasp of the composition, and also in terms of spatial movement of the different "layers" of the piece. In this stereo version you can clearly notice the movement and shapes going up, down, to the front, from one side to the other. Eyes closed, listening.

[slugswaterfall]

this fellow is way ahead of the likes of me

[mod07]

@uluriak To achieve a not stereo image, is now being investigated tecnologies as Ambisonic, leaving the rules 5.1, and others for artistic purposes or effects in the movies.

[mod07]

@uluriak @uluriak never is octophony a stereophonic effect. Stereophony was accidentally discovered by alan blumblein when he was researching a way to make a sound panorama of an orchestra using only the 2 wires of the telephonic system in the early 30's. He and his colleagues found that if the speakers form an equilateral triangle wirh rhe listener, it can form a sound picture of that size. Unfortunately it does not work well with most speakers in the back or sides.