erik satie

records i've been listening to:
no smoking orchestra - unza unza time
joy division - substance
sun ra - nuclear war
björk - telegram
can - tago mago


i'm writing about erik satie because he was a pretty big influence on john cage, and we haven't really talked about him any...

i've been listening to his "gymnopedies" and "gnossiennes," and i was thinking about the use of silence in music, and i thought that these pieces were good examples of that. however, upon relistening to them, i relaised that there was very little silence involved, not really any spaces between sounds. what i was hearing was the suggestion of silence, the way that satie's notes are suspended, they create the sensation or illusion of silence. the music is simple, there are no chords played, only carefully timed individual notes that invoke a sort of sadness in their expectation.

i did some reading on satie, and here's what i learned (and what i wrote about silence was before i came to the realisation stated above):

he was considered an unremarkable student at the paris conservatory, but his music had a lot of influence on (besides john cage and phillip glass), claude debussy, maurice ravel and igor stravinsky. apparently he earned a living by playing at bars, and eventually died from liver problems resulting from alcoholism. he disliked the big-production feel of the romantic composers, and wrote mostly quiet, contemplative piano works like his gymnopedies, gnossiennes, and nocturnes. he also worte a piece called vexations with 840 repetitions, a ballet that included a part for a typewriter (with picasso providing visual), and piece called embryons desseches or 'dried up embryos' instructions on his scores included things like "open your mind" and "wonder about yourself." his music really provides a groundwork for the later minimalists, and the use of silence is very important, as it creates a sense of anticipation between one note and the next.

(thumb is from "the scandalous success of salvador dali," which has the gnossiennes as its score)