He Stranger – 40 days alone in the Namib Desert
The first part of my 12 years journey. The desert Namib.
40 days in complete solitude. Only my grand piano, Kubus and me. 40 days full of music. Full of emotions.
The result is not only piano fractals, but also videos that you should take along on my journey. Following #theSoundinyou
Day 1 – He Stranger in Namib
I live my reputation. Alone. 40 days. In complete isolation. Let the power of nature permeate me.
It all starts with listening in, sensing: I can not describe it yet. Just play, create a piece of music that is freely accessible to all.
Listen to my music, download and work with it on Soundcloud.
It is free, without rights, without licenses – accessible to everyone.
Day 2 – In the desert
The motifs for the symphony take shape. It is, I believe, the view of the starry sky and the vast expanse of the desert, which brings me to other worlds. As in a dream…
“Learn to dream, to seek the unknown. Man’s pursuit should be more than he can easily grasp. “Listen to my music, download it and work with it on Soundcloud.
It is free, without rights, without licenses – accessible to everyone.
Day 3 – Nature, the wing and me
I’m getting more and more to myself. Me, nature and the wing.
The next camp is ten kilometers away, I have no radio and no connection … In an emergency I would need over five hours through the desert to get there. I would have to take at least three liters of water – more if I’m lost – not to dry out …
Listen to my music, download and work with it on Soundcloud.
It is free, without rights, without licenses – accessible to everyone.
Day 4 – leaving traces
I am glad not to play daily. I want to take my time to feel the desert. At 40 degrees in the sun. It is still ten o’clock in the morning.
Can I also design the desert? … For an hour I have been moving stone after stone. The stones will form a great “drawing” – across the desert in diameter more than a hundred meters! – finished for the finale on the 40th day!
Listen to my music, download and work with it on Soundcloud.
It is free, without rights, without licenses – accessible to everyone.
Day 5 – Nights in Namib
I wait here day and night. The nights are especially exciting. I was scared for my life. Hyenas. Their howling reminds me of the panicky cry of a child. Creepy. And they came closer and closer.
Day 6 – My children, my greatest treasure
The symphony begins to take shape … But I always struggle with loneliness.
When a difficult moment comes, I immediately think of my children at home. They are my greatest treasure and my light in every serious moment. I do not miss anything from home – just her.
Day 7 – Break
Today I did not play, but once a day “off”. Get rid of the melodies of the last days, so that new things can follow …
I just kept dragging stones endlessly. That’s my meditation. In the meantime, I no longer notice thoughts …
Day 8 – My wing in the desert
Today I do not have a good day. There is so much dust in the cube, that a tender pianissimo is no longer possible, i. I tend to always play a bit louder than I would like. This works only conditionally, because it makes everything just too loud.
Day 9 – day in solitude
The writing gives me a kind of communication and closeness, which I am already slowly missing.
Today I played the piano for three hours and found a whole new, very intense topic. I was sweaty wet after an hour. I undressed and played completely naked.
Day 10 – Actually, I am alone for a very long time
The many games do the wing well, the dust escapes from the cracks, he is slowly free again.
Just as I am getting freer. But the last few days I’ve become very clear that I have learned to be alone at some point, but actually I do not like to be alone.
At some point in my life I became a loner .. I forgot when and why.
Day 11 – wheel of fate
I’ve discovered something: The recurring theme in Fractal 11 in the different pitches allows endless movement.
It’s called wheel of fate because the motive is always a kind of retrospective … in different emotions .. from sad to joyful to peaceful …
Day 12 – Countless tunes
Today the writing has to wait. The music just gushes out with it .. I can not even count the new melodies because they are so wonderfully interwoven …
Day 13 – dissatisfaction
Despite my preparations and everything that I created yesterday, I was not satisfied with my play in the evening … Did I want too much?
It is always difficult to move on after a personal climax. I want to spend today repeating the tunes of yesterday. And tomorrow I just want to play these motives.
Day 14 – Free giving, such a precious commodity
There are things in the world
You can not buy them.
Is not it a weird world,
In the free giving
such a precious commodity is.
Day 15 – Full moon
I am becoming more and more one with nature. Here in the desert you can actually enjoy the moon rising on the horizon, that’s beautiful … a yellow disk rising rapidly in the dark.
Day 16 – Meditation
Meditation – in the desert at sunrise – that’s pretty big.
The fact that the sea of thought in solitude is so small, I fall very quickly through this sea. When I turn up and look down over a sand dune, it’s like being on an alien planet … I sometimes take several seconds to realize where I am.
Day 17 – exhaustion
I am completely exhausted … I was only apathetically in bed the whole day and was glad when I fell asleep at some point.
My state of mind: dissatisfied, powerless, haggard. I want to last another three weeks. It just seems like an eternity to me.
Day 18 – My love for the game
I started learning to play the piano at the age of nine. It was my great love, my passion, my world. Then at 15 – from one day to the next – my world looked different. I turned my back on the piano … But my passion has lasted.
Day 19 – Learning
To teach myself something leads me to an intense inner experience and an “inner dialogue”, very quietly. There does not seem to be much happening for outsiders, but inside you are wandering through worlds …
Day 20 – Listening
Listen to what is calling within you … if you follow that, you follow the intention of the soul. And if you follow this intention, you are always safe.
Day 21 – Experience the world
There are many ways to experience the world. The one I’m deliberately walking alone is called the Gnostic Way.
Day 22 – Loneliness
The loneliness is getting more intense. Therefore, I immerse myself more and more in the music: dive, escape …
Day 23 – Time travel of the music
The motives for this symphony are like a journey through time from my musical recordings of the last years. Memories of encounter, loneliness, touch and just listening to what sounds in me – that’s what the fractals are made of.
Day 24 – Saturn
A long day comes to an end. The sky is so clear today that for the first time in my life I can see Saturn, the red planet, with the naked eye.
Day 25 – Nature sounds in F
Each key has a different character. F, for example, is nature, but also the mother key. If you stand next to a river, you will automatically, if you want to sing something, sing in F after some time …
Day 26 – A place of extremes
Winter is coming: After the sun goes down, it is now bitterly cold. Where you would have died of thirst in the desert without water during the day, you would freeze overnight without the right clothes.
Day 27 – Rain in the desert
Deep black clouds fall from all sides. Shortly after: thunderstorm. The rain is raining down all the time, and everything around me is black.
The very special: It has not rained here for eight years … not a drop!
Day 28 – Home in me
Everything around me sounds, and within me there is a silence that scares me of everything.
There is a home in me, a self that has become completely defenseless. It just leaves trust in something, in me, except me, everywhere, that protects me and quietly shows the way that I can go.
Day 29 – Rain in the Namib Desert
This morning I dragged two hours of stones in the pouring rain of the century … I was at my personal stop. At some point I almost cried in the rain on the ground and I rattled to my hut … And who do I meet? My friend Summer – the Jackal! He then accompanied me to the hut, then he left again … I held the door for him … But that was probably still too much for him …
I already mentioned that the last rain was eight years ago, BUT: Nobody remembers that it is raining and there are always gale-force gusts. And that is precisely why the desert is beautiful at the moment: the water has turned the beige into a rich terracotta, and in just one night, lichens grew on my way from the hut, germs sprouted, blades of grass up to five centimeters high … even as real leaves as in lakes under water lilies … unbelievable.
Day 30 – The moment of clarity in my music
I love life, and life loves me! I took so much for me and my music. This morning on the way to the cube, the moment came to me, when I realized for a moment that the mystery of the fractals, the musical motives, can be that they can be performed both as a piano and as a symphonic AND musical version.
I thought, then they would be truly timeless fractals. At that moment, for a few seconds, the sun rose in the deep dark cloud cover, and a rich sunbeam fell right in front of my feet … After a short “thank you”, the cloud cover was closed again, but everything was said.
Day 31 – The music bubbles out of me
Today I made good progress. Finally, the musical motives were bubbling out again. It was a beautiful day today. Now I know more and more why I am actually here:
If we follow the call within us, we are always borne. We can not understand life because we are. Enjoy every moment of this wonderful spectacle. You are the director, the actor, the audience, the critic and the storyteller who passes the story on.
Day 32 – Desire to share
Musically and physically, the end is slowly approaching. I’ve walked the dunes endlessly … There are so many things I would like to share with someone … I hope I’ll come back with this somebody someday.
Day 33 – The path through loneliness
The loneliness is now more and more around. I did not think that I would be sitting in bed crying again. But behind our borders begins an unknown country for each of us. No, I will not back down. I will go further.
Day 34 – Pattern in the sand
Today I have managed towing and laying stone for almost five hours. The field is already taking shape, and when I look at it from the black mountain, you can already see the dimensions
to capture…
Day 35 – Unexpected encounters
When I was about to lay the last stone on a pile of stones, I discovered a snake. I was petrified and adrenaline rushed through my body.
“Brother Snake, I only want to bring beauty to this place, not death for one of us. I will retire and we both will live on. “
Day 36 – Music has no face
I do not like the word “classic” when it comes to music. And the distinction between “serious” and “not serious” music is also very far-fetched. Chopin and Mozart also wanted to give people pleasure. Music based on complex harmonies. Maybe that’s the best way.
Day 37 – Let go
To let go is to give space to flowering, to give waxing its course, to listen to one’s own silence and to understand that without the silence “hearing” is impossible.
Day 38 – Empty
Yesterday I was so full of expectation and incredibly disappointed that nothing new came up … just empty. And since I was physically and mentally here to my limits, just broke out the crying out of me.
Day 39 – It’s done
At noon, it is finally done. I put the last stone … after 39 days.
After tomorrow’s final I will leave this wonderful country after 40 days. All tracks will be blurred. Only the notation in the desert remains.
Day 40 – My journey comes to an end
Knowledge matures with the ability to love. Without my children, I would still be lost between guides, autosuggestions, and the endless attempts to explain life. But we will never be able to explain life. It’s like asking the element fire what it feels like to be hot. We are life, inexplicable and mysterious.
Together we want to go on in the great mystery, always knowing that there is no end in infinity. Only limits that we can extend within ourselves. I look forward to it every day when I’m back where my home is.
What remains is a piece of music that is freely accessible to everyone. Because everything starts with listening in and feeling in oneself. The journey can begin.
Learn more about me and the project here