Ausmultiplikation

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Ausmultiplikation (literally, "multiplying-out") is a term used by the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen to describe a technique in which a long note is replaced by a number of shorter ones. Similar to the ornamental technique of divisions (also called "diminutions") in Renaissance music, in Stockhausen's formula composition this usually involves the substitution of a complete or partial formula for a single tone occurring in a "more background" projection of the formula at a very slow speed. Stockhausen first describes the technique, however, in connection with his "opus 1", Kontra-Punkte, composed in 1952-53.