Studie 1 (1953) is an electroacoustic composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, a German composer and electronic music theoretician. The work centers around the manipulation of sine waves and explores the multitude of forms the sound can take when altered from its “base” state. By affecting pitch and amplitude through envelopes the sound shifts from something dark and murky to possessing metallic, almost bell-like qualities. Stockhausen’s juxtaposing of these different sound characteristics through arrangement urges the listener to focus on texture, shape, and movement. It’s use of sine waves modulated at a specific pitch also pushes the work into the realm of serialism. The composition is at once systematic and structured while transcending structure through the other elements of sound and music that it proposes we explore and experiment with. Overall, Studie 1’s obscuration of its sound sources pushes the composition into a realm of abstract listening that challenges the institutionalized forms of music and listening that had been established at the time.