Stockhausen was a young man during the war. He trained to be a teacher and was sent to work in a military hospital near where the army was. His father died fighting in the war. After the war, with no parents, he went to work on a farm. Then, in 1947, he went to study at the Cologne Musikhochschule. He played the piano in bars and clubs and he improvised at the piano when playing for a magician’s magic shows. He was thinking of becoming a writer.