‘Play/Sing as parallel as possible with the others’: “You must also play parallel dynamics, immediately. And whoever goes along with someone else has to go along with him in terms of dynamics as well.”
“It is best for being parallel if I play the dynamics so that the volume goes up and down, so that someone else can follow me better.”
Parallel vs. the same: The material used to play along parallel can be completely different from the material to which you are playing.
Playing parallel means imitation of volume, pitch, inner texture, the manner in which the other one is playing. Playing parallel is based on changing all musical aspects along with someone else (“up and down in parameters”) with the shortest reaction time (BIRD OF PASSAGE is actually a “listening test”).
“The great thing about this effect is that the whole ensemble moves parallel. Of course with the delays that are typical of the individual musicians. But it is still beautiful, to move completely parallel, like a swarm of birds. Interesting to hear these delays.”
About interaction: “Make sure that what you play parallel allows the others to move parallel too.”
Problem: Canons develop out of thematic figures by playing parallel. That is why it is better to play continuous sound-lines – without any motifs.
“Play something of your own, but with parallel parameters.” The difficulty of the piece lies in the necessity of listening very exactly while you are playing.
“Everyone has an influence on this four-layered music” (in regard to the four players of the EFIM). But: “Make sure that you play parallel and not identically.”
References to past styles should be avoided (here: harmonic-melodic phrases, motivic forms). Motifs and melodies cannot be changed in a parallel way.
About the individual ‘exceptions’: “It means that you can fly away from being parallel. Then I do not play parallel for a while, go in a completely different direction, where I notice that the others cannot possibly follow me there. But then I return. Those are the exceptions – for a brief period I do something else, but then I am parallel again.” (This way, duets and trios can result from the exceptions and pauses, but no solos.)
About the problem of the end / standstill: Parallelism must be continued until it is concluded in a standstill. “Then something would have to happen, with which none of you would reckon, if someone wants to make it stop. That is probably not possible with tones alone. I don’t know. This ending is very extraordinary. (...) You may not stop until – with some extraordinary event – someone has made the whole thing stand still.”
The sound material must be relative and not too fine/detailed a surface.
“With this kind of music, you need not stay with one thing for too long before you change it. And when you change it, then it must be done very consciously so that the others react to it.”
The four sections should be clearly distinguished (1. Play/Sing as parallel as possible with the others, 2. Make exceptions and long pauses, 3. Bring everything to a standstill, 4. Fly away).
Standstill does not mean to stop or make an abrupt pause, but rather to reach a continuous, unchanging, balanced situation in all parameters. Not “no music” but rather everything in the music “stands still”. A “static tone”.
On ‘fly away’: This happens “all of a sudden”, suddenly and “everyone rushes to a different corner and is gone.”
On the ‘exceptions’: “Exception doesn’t mean that you should play something that emerges from your subconscious, but rather that you should make exceptions to playing parallel.”
“Thus, whoever takes the initiative has two tasks: first, to see whether or not there is a chance that the others are not busy with something else, that you do something different and then you change. Then I expect the others to change with me. Then I have to wait until they change. And I would be totally amazed if someone did not go along with me. That has gone wrong before, those are true mistakes. The audience doesn’t know that. But what the audience knows and doesn’t know is completely unimportant in this context. We know: There are minimum instructions, they are very simple and they have to be obeyed.”
The piece has a continuous, layered character. The individual sounds have to be like sound-ribbons that have their own inner activity, and their movements upwards and downwards are easy to follow.
On the standstill: Changes in pitch and rhythm, as well as the attacks, the entrances and the dynamics: all of this becomes zero and no longer changes, stays constant. A constant fortissimo is also possible, the standstill does not have to be reached by using a diminuendo
“This process of bringing the whole to a standstill is what I like so much. The reduction of timbre changes – that must be a successive process (...) in each parameter.
If you leave a dense structure of intervals too quickly, it is too difficult for the others to hear you and follow. You should mark the path of the actual musical process (e.g. with a glissando, carefully composed of little figures or loops). Stockhausen suggests that each player prepares twelve ways of changing pitches that someone else is able to follow, as a preparatory exercise for the piece.
Becoming softer and being followed parallel is sometimes problematic in the realisation. Head- and/or hand-signals can help communicate more clearly.
The objective of the preparatory exercises as a group: “It must seem like (...) you actually become one body. If you practice it often, then that is really possible. Then there are collective reflexes among four people, who know exactly how the others want the dynamics to be when someone leads.”