Future Work

As explained before, Stockhausen used the unity of form and material extensively. Kontakte (1959-60) was one the first of his purely electronic pieces and it uses the unity in different perceptual layers as a principal theme. (Kontakte is composed of an electronic part and an instrumental part; however, the electronic part can be listened to by itself as a complete piece.) One is very surprised to find out with what kind of primitive instruments, compared to today's digital computers, these pieces were created. Stockhausen writes[47, page 131]:

In some sections of KONTAKTE I had to splice it all by hand, which is an unbelievable labour. Imagine, I worked on the last section of KONTAKTE, beginning around 23' 00'' or 24' 00'', together with Gottfried Michael Koenig in Studio 11 on the third floor of Cologne Radio, for three months. And when it was completely ready, I spliced it together with the previous sections, listened, turned pale, left the studio and was totally depressed for a whole day. And I came back next morning and announced to Koenig that we had to do it all over again. I mean, he almost fainted.

Compare their instruments with the speed of today's central processing units or the versatility of modern operating systems. On the contrary to the belief that computers are not still good enough for music, I believe we have to concentrate on creating software bases for computers suited for music which keep up with the fast pace of changing hardware, rather than building special purpose hardware^6.1. We can compare the works of the early serialist composer to the work of computer scientists who coded assemblers by entering the bits of the binary object codes by keys on the front panel of the old computers. These computers, which would fill up a room 30 years ago, today can be installed in the door of our microwave ovens.

In the synthesis method described in this thesis, we believe that we have captured the serial ideas of Stockhausen, perhaps unconsciously, since we were not aware of these composition methods when we started this project. We also believe that this thesis shows that serialism and self-similarity are intertwined and that they are natural and necessary for the future development of computer music. The use of self-similarity has provided a system which can create very complex results by using very simple structures. It also provides us with many tools to not only assure the uniformity of form and content but also to use the unity of the perceptual layers as a musical tool. Self-similarity and chaos are among the most fascinating findings of our century, and there is still a great deal for us to learn about them.