ki-no by Dieter Schnebel

Dieter Schnebel's Ki-No (1963–67) is a pivotal work of "conceptual" and "visible" music. While often associated with the Siemens Studio for Electronic Music in Munich due to its inclusion on the studio's major retrospective compilations, the piece is actually much more than an electronic tape work.

It was recorded with the assistance of Josef Anton Riedl, the director of the Siemens Studio. Riedl is credited with the "Klangreihung" (sound sequencing) and the recording of the concrete/electronic sounds used in the work.

Unlike the "Cologne School" (WDR), which focused on pure synthesis, the Siemens Studio in Munich was known for its interdisciplinary approach, often integrating music with film (e.g., Alexander Kluge, Edgar Reitz) and visual arts. Ki-No fits perfectly into this experimental, multi-media environment.

The Concept: "Music for Projectors"

The title is a play on the Russian/German word for cinema (Kino), but Schnebel subtitled it Nachtmusik für Projektoren und Hörer (Night Music for Projectors and Listeners).

Visible Music: It is a "projection piece" where the "score" is actually what the audience sees. Slide projectors (usually 2 to 4) project graphics, musical notation, and cryptic instructions onto a screen. The piece challenges the boundary between seeing and hearing. The audience "reads" the music while listening to a combination of:

Live Percussion (drums).
A Narrator (speaker).
Electronic Tape (the part produced at Siemens).

Internalization: The goal was for the music to happen "inside the head" of the listener as they processed the relationship between the visual symbols and the sparse, atmospheric sounds.

Ki-No is the direct predecessor to Schnebel’s famous book MO-NO: Musik zum Lesen (Music to Read, 1973). While Ki-No uses projectors for a public audience, MO-NO takes the concept into a private, silent space where the reader "performs" the music entirely through the imagination while looking at the page.

OTRJ 研究所 is a research center dedicated to the study, preservation and dissemination of the foundational works of 20th century contemporary and conceptual art music. An accompanying series of critically restored recordings will be released from 2020 onwards.