 From 1947 to 1951 , Stockhausen studied music pedagogy and piano at the Hochschule für Musik Köln ( Cologne Conservatory of Music ) and musicology , philosophy , and Germanics at the University of Cologne . He had training in harmony and counterpoint , the latter with Hermann Schroeder , but he did not develop a real interest in composition until 1950 . He was admitted at the end of that year to the class of Swiss composer Frank Martin , who had just begun a seven @-@ year tenure in Cologne ( Kurtz 1992 , 28 ) . At the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1951 , Stockhausen met Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts , who had just completed studies with Olivier Messiaen ( analysis ) and Darius Milhaud ( composition ) in Paris , and Stockhausen resolved to do likewise ( Kurtz 1992 , 34 – 36 ) . He arrived in Paris on 8 January 1952 and began attending Messiaen 's courses in aesthetics and analysis , as well as Milhaud 's composition classes . He continued with Messiaen for a year , but he was disappointed with Milhaud and abandoned his lessons after a few weeks ( Kurtz 1992 , 45 – 48 ) . In March 1953 , he left Paris to take up a position as assistant to Herbert Eimert at the newly established Electronic Music Studio of Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk ( NWDR ) ( from 1 January 1955 , Westdeutscher Rundfunk , or WDR ) in Cologne ( Kurtz 1992 , 56 – 57 ) . In 1963 , he succeeded Eimert as director of the studio ( Morawska @-@ Büngeler 1988 , 19 ) . From 1954 to 1956 , he studied phonetics , acoustics , and information theory with Werner Meyer @-@ Eppler at the University of Bonn ( Kurtz 1992 , 68 – 72 ) . Together with Eimert , Stockhausen edited the journal Die Reihe from 1955 to 1962 ( Grant 2001 , 1 – 2 ) . 
