As rebellious as he was talented, Paumann left what was probably a stifling environment, traveling secretly to Munich in 1450 where he was immediately employed by Duke Albrecht III as court organist, who also gave him a house.

His travels in Italy were probably around 1470, when the Milanese Sforza family was beginning to build their chapel into the most impressive singing and composition establishment in Europe: Josquin des Prez, Loyset Compère, Alexander Agricola and others were all there; some of them may have heard him play, and may have exchanged musical ideas with him.

Paumann's epitaph in the Munich Frauenkirche reads: Anno 1473, on the evening of St. Paul's conversion died and was here buried the most ingenious master of all instruments and music, Cunrad Pauman [sic], knight, born blind at Nuremberg, God have mercy upon him.

[1]Paumann's gift, his disability, his instrument, and his influence are all reminiscent of Francesco Landini, the great Italian composer of a hundred years before.

His Fundamentum organisandi of 1452, an instruction manual for improvisation, was combined with the Lochamer-Liederbuch of approximately the same date; the double source is housed in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek.