The Music That Is Actually MEANT To Be IGNORED
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- Опубліковано 2 гру 2023
- Weird History's Satie Video- • Erik Satie | History's...
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Love Satie. He wrote a play called "This Theatre is Shut Tonight" just to see if people would walk in when it was signposted.
Olden days sh*tposter
Did they
@@nbeutler1134they who?
Probably trying to filter normies, only people who knew or were fans would likely go.
Yep. Definitely one of the great trolls of history right there 😎
If he didn't want his music to be paid attention to he shouldn't have written such masterpieces duh
Well he didn't
@@jamesjameson7384except he did
ate and left no crumbs
Had to read this comment 3 times. Look, here’s something that might help: ,
@@fcturner
I read it once and understood it. It’s not a nested sentence. There’s only one missing comma, get over it
Trois Gymnopédies is a perfect example of how “simple” music can be so profound
Gnossienne No 1 is even easier and sounds cooler
@@forsaken841It is definitely not easier.
Everyone only talks about the 1st one but the 2nd and 3rd one's are underrated af.
@@forsaken841 “cooler” is subjective, no? I say this as someone who throughly enjoys Gnossienne No 1. The beauty of music is that it can speak differently to each listener. There is no “correct” preference
It's like, background music..before movies were invented
If Satie were alive today he'd be making chill lo-fi beats to study to.
He’d both love and hate our generation (he’d hate us for giving the ambience attention 🤣
Pretty sure Moby is his reincarnation.
youtube.com/@Satiechillbeatz
As an empirical musicologist, I was involved in research on a 24 hour performance of vexations by one single performer (a nerd pianist who did this every once in a while and sort of specialised on this). We recorded not only performance (like audio and midi) but EEG and physiology as well. As you'd expect, a single performer doing 24h repetitions nonstop not only experiences wakeful and drowsy moments , but episodes of full trance.
What struck me in the midi data was that during trance the timing data, although sounding like simply chaotic, the actual data could be mapped out along fractal parameters, i.e. they were still organised in a high-dimensional hyperspace so complex that neither a listener could hear nor the performer was aware of the inherent ordered structure because it was just too complex.
No idea what Satie unlocked there, but crazy shit. I know it sounds esoteric but it was serious empirical research, it just showed up in the data to pretty much everyone's amazement.
That’s interesting to me but also begs the question to a layman like myself, couldn’t *anything* technically be quantified as being a part of a higher structure? Like eventually if you break anything chaotic down enough it falls into some kind of quantifiable patter
Total crap
Do you have a paper published somewhere with this study? I would love to read it!
Mathematician in doubt here, would also like to read the paper
@@ElGrecoOB I am pretty sure the maths weren't applied correctly TBH. We calculated a lyapunov coefficient for the three states awake, drowsy and trance based on note duration differences n -> n+1 like a phase/return plot as far as I remember. Not even sure if the conditions for calculating these were met. Memory is vague, this was half a lifetime ago, but if you want to find the related papers (there were several) it's best to search for "Kopiez" (the senior author on all papers) and "vexations".
Would love to hear a mathematicians feedback because the peer review process back then was a bit disappointing (in the sense that apparently no actual expert had been found and appointed)
Video game music seems similar, in that it's supposed to be repeated endlessly in the background without you really noticing or getting tired of it
Yeah, this is basically OST written for IRL... and he's pointing out how repetitive some of real life can be.
Yeah, I was thinking of the original tracks for early Minecraft - songs like "Wet Hands" set a chill vibe, fade to the background, and become this subliminal presence in the game. And they also have a similar, almost hypnotic quality to them, like these Satie pieces.
Minecraft: Volume Alpha has been variously compared to both Satie and Eno.
I think of Satie's music like video game music. I don't entirely believe Satie meant for his music to be totally ignored, but I do feel like he was trying to integrate his music into a scene, or in a weird way, a level. I think he moreso wanted his music to add to something else insead of being the main art itself. It's kind of interactive in a way. It's like how video games, especially rpgs and jrpgs, would have different music for each part of the map with a lot of those being incredibly beautiful but not intended to be taken in on its own.
My thoughts exactly. I don't know why he got diminished to being an influence for nothing but ambient music. Imo 'background' doesn't necessarily mean 'ambient'. The part at 7:36 sounds like something from a Ghibli movie
your feelings are irrational
I recommend checking out Satie's nocturnes, they're rarely ever talked about but they truly are hidden gems.
I learned about Erik Satie in a music appreciation class I had to take to fill in core classes in college (I'm a musician: of COURSE I appreciate music!). Satie truly marched to the beat of his own drummer and I love that. He was a contemporary of Debussy and Picasso and he just did his thing. I admire the courage he had to be that way. Thanks for exploring this!
Debussy also wrote a fantastic orchestral arrangement to Satie’s Gymnopédies just to make him better known and to help him when Satie was in financial hardship
I've said this before in Nahre's video but, but Erik is just THAT big of a legend that every video talking about him would always be relevant and fun to watch. I'm not even a musician and I couldn't love that guy more
I might not have the details correct, but when Satie heard Debussy’s “La Mer,” he quipped regarding the first movement, called “From Dawn to Noon on the Sea,” “I liked the part at eleven o’clock.”
Satie is just about my favorite composer because he was a serious composer who didn't take himself too seriously. He was just a guy who composed.
Like the "weird diet" of his was actually something he said in an interview because he didn't see the point of people wanting to know the non-music parts of artists' lives. So, he went super specific and odd to screw with them.
His whole life is full of moments like this. He enjoyed what he did, but he didn't act like he was some grand member of society. And I think that makes him one of the grander people in society.
He sounds like the embodiment of “just be yourself, don’t care what others think.” Oddly very inspiring.
I love this. Even the idea of furniture music made me think of my furniture self. 😂 Just let me be; don’t look at me. 😅😂😅
@@alexiswilliamsinc literally Me 😁
@AlexisWilliamsinc Another great work from him was after a critic called his music 'formless' so he wrote 'Music in the form of a Pear" so that way it had a defined form
I never realized this, but I think ambient music just might be one of my top three favorite genres of music.
I’m so glad you did Satie. He’s my favorite composer. The most dark, interesting, and mysterious music of any classical musician.
Good video. Super long time ago, at the original Roulette in Tribeca, NYC, I participated in a 24 hours 'Vexations' performance. About 20 performers in total, each took an hour, I took two. Didn't leave the room except to bathroom for the full 24 - mind expanding experience, Satie a master.
Charles being a menace in 6:10 😂😂😂
I believe that Erik Satie was an absolute genius, like most composers in his day. We should all give them credit for profoundly influencing music today, especially what Erik Satie brought to the table
Forgive me I'm not trying to be nasty but same as today there were a million and one mediocre composers in saties day. We just have the surviving catalogues of the finest composers from the past. But there were many failed and average composers of the classical era. Not to be picky. Just the hyperbole. Sorry.
I mean for goodness sake they thought men went round with tiny homunculuses (homunculi?) in their scrotums. Cant have been that smart!
@@SummerByStyx No, you have a good point! :-)
@@sandeegrey5977 :)
In a time when many people listen to music on their headphones while doing other things, I feel like a lot of popular music has become background or furniture music.
On Vexations, I read an account of a performance of the entire 840 repetitions after which some smart ass called out "encore"! 😅
I would have shouted, "four thirty three!"
Satie has a lot of serious pieces as well. His nocturnes are majestic
CSSSA (california summer school for the arts) always did a vexations marathon for 24 hours, I had the pleasure of participating in 2003 and 2004, it's a totally surreal experience both playing and listening, wonderful video on one of my favorite composers thank you charles :D
videogame music is, in a sense, what he wanted. you don't always pay attention to the music that plays on the level, it's part of the scenario and world, like a tree on the back ground
Oh, I ALWAYS pay attention to the music. Why do you think I like Spyro so much? That music is a straight up banger!!
Me too, but there is games like breath of the wild that the music is so smooth you just acept it as part of the world, not as something else, not like an element, but is the world itself.@@DoofenSpyroDragon16
Yo I did not expect to see Music for Airports make an appearance! That album has helped me find peace in so many stages of my life.
I was introduced to Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians via a spot on NPR's All Things Considered some number of years ago. I instantly went out and bought the recording and I still regularly listen to it today. It is powerful stuff!!
I can't believe there's a classical musician that encapsulates the way I've been trying to tackle music my entire life! But, it makes sense... because nothing in this era is truly new or original. Thank you Charles for introducing me to musique d'ameublement and Eric Satie. I never realized the ambient movement stemmed from here.
I feel there is a missed opportunity to bring that video game music, as it has to ride the line between this background style of music while still bringing forth memorable melodies and harmonies that can be listened to on loop without getting old. But this has been mentioned on this channel before.
I was just thinking that. The first time I realised this was when my kids were playing Club Penguin (more than a decade ago now) and the music (Clam Waters) was looping and yet we didn't get bored with it, it was even pleasant. Then, a few years later, we discovered The Consouls and our appreciation of vgm was complete!
@@cooldebt are they the guys that arrange the video game awards music? Adam Neely did a 'tour video' of him performing and discussing video game composition... Probably worth watching (again)... I wouldn't be surprised if they at least used some of the consouls arrangements.
@@LuxLucidOfficial The Consouls did make it to the Neely video. I was instantly addicted to their vgm jazz covers the first time I heard them (it was KK Cruisin' but the one that got me was their clever cover of Zelda Main Theme). They are literally my daily bgm as I work as I never get sick of the tunes. (They didn't do the awards music though as they are based in Sydney)
This might feel like it came out of nowhere, but visual novel music where only 12 2-3 minute songs must be played in the background for 40+ hours resulted in songs that focus on harmonies that can resist loops for tens of times while remaining interesting. It's a good lead to where to find more of this.
Try MANYO's cherry blossoms
Or this UA-cam vid with this title: Instrumental Music Collection Composed by Ryo Mizutsuki with Key
More Satie examinations, please! He's been my favorite composer for about 25 years and investigating his life and ideas has been endlessly fascinating and fun.
0:17 - I was introduced to this piece in the late 1960s. It started off *Blood, Sweat and Tears* self-titled album, where they further develop it into a jazzy number!)
Your pronounciation of "Gymnopédie" was flawless ! I should know, I'm French ! Congrats !
And I love that piece of music ! Did you know that Satie's music teacher said about him that he was the worst student he ever had and that he would have no career... Interesting that Satie remained in History and his teacher only through this anecdote.
Satie was a genius. His music has virtually no precedent and no one has ever written anything like this since him. Satie has made freedom his main philosophy. His freedom of mind and totally free of preconceptions and/or clichés remains essentially unmatched, and perhaps not all the implications of his music have been understood and pursued. Satie still has so much to teach. He said, "Learn to look far, in the Great Far". He succeeded.
>His freedom of mind and totally free of preconceptions and/or clichés
Reminds me a lot of something Giorgio Moroder said, interesting how that mindset leads to great things...
I had the opportunity to hear/see Vexations played when I went to Governors School (an intellectually challenging summer program for “gifted” students in NC). It was literally a 14 hour, 2 minute piece (3 movements 1st being one minute, 2nd 840 minutes, each repetition taking exactly 1 minute, and final movement taking one minute.) There was a rotating set of performers and a counter/timekeeper to ensure that it was executed as it should be and was done overnight so it wouldn’t interfere with our other classes. It was definitely an experience.
Wow, that’s so interesting!
The first full piece I learned was Satie’s Gnossienne No 1. Nice easy dark and brooding.
A pure genius. And clearly ... Not alone in his mind ❤️❤️❤️
Thank-you Charles. This is really one of the best videos you have made so far. You applied your expertise to one of the greatest originators of ambient and attempted to explain in simple terms the enigma that was Satie. Really enjoyed this. More about Satie please.
The Gymnopedies have been my FAVOURITE classical pieces forever. Thank you SO MUCHHHH for recognizing this man’s absolute genius!!!!! 💚
Those guys were doing on pianos what people are now doing with synths, but without the ability to set clock sources, gates, triggers, and sequences with a control voltage electronically.
Like a "I'm glad you're here, come in, come in" kinda vibe
I love Satie’s gymnopedies and gnossiennes and this is the most interesting lesson I have heard on him and his music - I never knew that about his intentions for his music. I’m also a huge Bill Evans fan so thank you for connecting the two! Both can hypnotise/put you in a trance with their music.
So Satie was the creator of Muzak. Boy Satie would love to have today's tools like Ableton and Push looping and combining sounds and loops.
gymnopedie 1 is my go-to sleep song! so calming and gorgeous
I never knew any of this about Satie, and it puts a whole new perspective on his music. I'll be thinking about this the next time I played the Gymnopedie.
I very much appreciate this clip. this is actually a very important genre. I appreciate your clear explanation.
Satie creates such an emotion with his music…. Thanks so much for the excellent analysis of the music of Satie
Satie was a stone-cold genius ...
We did a minimalism festival at my university, where my musical improvisation group did a couple of Terry Riley pieces including In C, and there were several other performances throughout the weekend, and it ended with a 26-hour performance of Vexations.
There were two pianos on the stage and players would trade off after so many repetitions as they went through a rotation of people.
As cool as music for airports is, I recommend you check out it's predecessor, discreet music. The A side is the title piece and it's simply wonderful, but even more so, the b side is variations on the three movements of Pachelbel's Canon in D. It involved cutting up and taping together the parts and having them play with dynamics and textures. And honestly brings a whole new life into something that's kind of boring and tiring after so long and so many times playing it normally.
Glad you mentioned him briefly and I would love to see you do a video on Steve Reich. 4 Organs is one of my favorite pieces of music in general.
I've been dabling with ambient music and I find that it is not only relaxing to listen to but also really relaxing to make.
Really enjoyed & appreciated this episode. Stay healthy & take care, CC. 😊
Charles, thank you for always doing your videos. I feel like we really know you personally. At least you make us feel like we were there with you and enjoying everything you’re teaching us.
My uni 4 piece guitar ensemble played both Gymopedie 1 and Waltz for Debby in the same semester. Hilariously challenging and a blast mixed with Brazillian pieces! Love this!
I just re-entered a Satie phase and seeing my favourite music UA-camr upload this is a huge delight!
I hope you come back to Steve Reich. I think it was a bit of a stretch to include him here. Definitely deserves more attention along with the project where DJs/Producers remixed some of his works (named exactly what you'd expect "Reich Remixed") which exposes how his tape loops and often repetitive compositions foreshadowed some aspects of contemporary, electronic and dance music such as the use of samples.
I definitely wouldn’t count Reich’s music as “furniture music” in the same way that Satie’s or Eno’s work can be. It’s mostly highly rhythmic and busy, and demands attention in a way that ambient music isn’t supposed to: it just requires a very different sort of attention from more traditional pieces. But he’s relevant since his phasing and tape works were a direct influence on Eno, especially the idea of “process music” whereby the piece emerges from the systems that the composer puts in place rather than being explicitly specified in every detail.
that middle finger really me caught me off guard XD. thank you editor
I love Satie so much, both as a composer and a person. His music is beautiful, and I also just appreciate a true eccentric 😄.
Great video. Love Gym No. 1, one of my favorite meditation pieces.
Also, looking mad swole, bro! 💪🏼
There are a few pieces by Satie that I think would be worth investigating. Saties' Danses gothiques appears simple but seems to be very intently written to create a very unique soundscape with each note being a separate voice moving in a dissonant harmony. And his Trois Sarabandes are very jazzy in a sense. Also his Uspud (Troisième Acte) has some crazy chords around 4 and and 8.15 minute marks.
My mom had an Erik Satie album that I listened to as a kid, and I always found it quite comedic.
I’d love for you to piggyback off of this video and do a breakdown of Philip Glass and his works, specifically some of the pieces he composed for theatre productions of Robert Wilson. Hypnotic, complex, and arguably brilliant work.
Or... that not all Minimalist Music is Ambient.
Take Michael Nyman for example.
*AS I TURN AND LOOK INTO THE SUN…. THE RAYS. BURN MY EYES.*
Nobuo uematsu's work on the ffvii remake soundtrack has this same character. It's wonderful music but it's also capable of sitting behind the gameplay without being intrusive. It wasn't until I listened to the soundtrack in the car that I realised the genius of it.
There's a big trend at the moment for more and more virtuosic composition and I feel the art of simple beautiful music has faded somewhat.
Gymnopedie is an great example of a really capable composer dropping back out of super technical into just enough to be right for the piece.
I totally dig your way of describing the letting go and experiencing the music. Sometimes the experience of doing that is way more meaningful than just listening to traditional stuff and can inspire really creative musings.
Steve Reich's music for twelve musicians is one of my favorite things of music, it's just so peaceful and beautiful and makes it easy to peacefully fall asleep.
I really enjoy the simplicity of Satie. Just lovely stuff....
Thank you for this, you really do a lot of interesting stuff
When I was an undergraduate at U of Maryland, the music department arranged a full performance of Vexations. Took a while, with various pianists taking turns.
Would LOVE an in depth piece of peace piece. That tune was the first Evans tune my grandfather showed me, and oh my I miss him dearly. Great video Chris.
Erik Satie's Gymnopedie no. 1 and Bill Evans's Peace Piece really inspired me to compose a piano piece that is similarly simple, melancholy, and a droning pedal progresion. Incredible how simplicity can emphasise emotion!
I love the music (and art in general) from that time so much. You can clearly see things we know from the 20th century starting to grow and interfere (like jazzy sounding things in the music) and just creative weirdness, but still with so much style
What is the name of your digital piano? It has a phenomenal sound
You might say that a lot of Satie's music was... satirical.
😂
Satierical
SATIE!!!! I played Vexations in college, and my mom bought me a vexations shirt without knowing the piece 😅 perfect!!!
I have studied his Trois Gymnopédies and his Gnossiennes and they truly are beautiful works that are hard to 'ignore' even when you try. I mean the structure and form of many of these pieces mimic that of a dance, especially that of the waltz, which in itself is quite interesting. I would also like to point towards Franz Schubert who had similar ideas even with Satie in that not all music had to be in the spotlight. Some of Schubert's best music was not to be performed in concerts, but rather in the private spaces of homes for small and intimate audiences, in which to quote Roger Scruton: "Schubert is the poet of home, and the loss of home."
With the endless looping it really reminds me of videogame music
I love this song so much. So soothing, so peaceful.
Ive never thought about ambient music as music that's meant to be ignored
Ooooo when you started talking about Steve Reich that reminded me of John Adams' Halleluja Junction. Wonderful piece for 2 pianos where you do see this melting of the song into just rhythm and sound.
He was scoring life. Beautiful actually.
This, the Clair De Lune, and the Gershwin videos have been some of my favourites lately ❤
Please listen to the Colgera theme from Tears of the Kingdom! It's my fav track in the the game
Dude invented video game menu music 😂
After this, how about a dive into the Organ Symphonies of Charles-Marie Widor? (Yes, entire symphonies written for a single performer on a single instrument.)
The Toccata from his 5th is the most famous (and there's even audio on YT of him performing it himself at age 90 or so), but the first/allegro movement from his 6th & the finale movement from his 8th are even better, and that's just barely scratching the surface.
Random comment, but you should check out some of the music from Bear in the Big Blue House. Low key underrated songs there with a lot of good writing!
ua-cam.com/video/38RXTvO-rF0/v-deo.htmlsi=tsUOjCL0tdnigi1H
Example!
The original internet troll before the internet was definitely Franz Joseph Haydn. The guy wrote a symphony so that the musicians could go home during the performance (Symphony No. 45), and he wrote a piece that woke up the audience members who would fall asleep during performances of his piece (Symphony No. 94)
Gymnopedie 1 is used at a very pivotal scene in Mother 3, and it gives me chills every time I hear it now
10:20. I love this description. perfect. so well said. a whole new level to the cliche 'its the vibe man" haha
I see this like videogame soundtracks. You don't always make ambient tracks but sometimes you want a piece to fill silence with a dull melody. Something to set the tone for a setting but not become a theme.
I collect a lot of so-called "chillout" and modern ambient music, and I use it to play in the background while I'm working -- typically when I'm doing something that's repetitive, or which doesn't require much creative input. I've always felt it helps me to get into 'the zone' -- and the work becomes almost meditative at that point. If the music were too dynamic, or required my attention in some way, it wouldn't serve that purpose.
I'd like to add that music for airports has the tact to know exactly when to stop quoting before Satie's melody becomes the only option. He quotes as far as he can without backing himself into a corner. It makes the simple arpeggio infinitely more complex if you expect the C# but don't get it. It's a wonderfully simple choice that yields a delightfully complex experience of subverted expectations from literally one d major arpeggio. The efficiency astounds me
also lmaoing at one of the pieces literally being called "Phonic Tiling." Just straight up a bathroom floor. OP's description of the snippet is totally perfect too, "one of those things that fades into the background of your mind" It also explains why it's so difficult to do repetitive music. A lot of precision goes into tiling a surface!
Erik Satie is one of those people who makes you realise how similar people are no matter the time period. His genius is the only part of him modern people cant relate to, his personality was ahead of it's time.
You may know this already, but Vexations, the piece that’s supposed to be played 840 times in a row, was actually never published by Satie. I think it was John Cage who was eventually given the manuscript after people found it folded up in the inside pocket of Satie’s blazer pocket after they were clearing his apartment in the aftermath of his death. Cage was simply mesmerised by it and made it his mission to get it published and give it it’s first public performance. Had a whole lecture on this when I was at university, and it was really interesting that Satie never even made a decision to publish it himself, let alone being a piece of random niche background/ambient music albeit published. Nothing more than a scrap of manuscript in his pocket…
Would love to hear your thoughts/analysis on Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 in Gm🤔 (particularly the cadenza)
Amazing I love ambient music. Thanks for sharing this 😊
Satie is one of my favorite composers. Technically simple enough to learn some pieces without knowig how to read notes, just by ear and watching slow tutorials on YT. I learned Gnossiennes 1-3 this way. Great pleasure to play them. Beautiful, mysterious music, definitely not "furniture" nor background for me.
"Vexations" was performed in NYC by a relay team of pianists, and the Times sent a relay team of reviewers to it (one of the reviewers had to sit in for a no-show performer). This was in the 1960's. Supposedly, according to Satie's idea, audience members could enter free but had to pay to leave in inverse proportion to how long they stayed.
Satie was my final refuge before I gave up on the piano - precisely because I could just noodle away to myself. I think Satie’s gymnopedies and gnossiennes are wonderfully self indulgent for lazy players like myself lol
Peace Piece is like a planning piece for Flamenco Sketches by Miles Davis in Kind of Blue, which of course had Bill Evans on piano.
I really like the point you made about Satie not wanting people to actually listen to his music. My high school orchestra programmed gymnopedie my senior year and I was so mad at my teacher because it was boring and made the audience fall asleep and it was harmful to our already suffering program as we were still trying to recover from the damage that Covid did to our program. I hated Satie because I thought that his music was so mind numbingly boring but I think knowing that he just wanted to make ambiance music just for the vibes makes me appreciate it more. Keep up the excellent work, as a stem and music performance double major I always have an extremely stressful and unmanageable schedule and workload and coming to your videos in breaks between classes always helps me destress and remind myself why I love music so much.
First heard of Satie from the electronic producer Endorphin in the 90s. He did an interpretation of Gymnopedie 1 which was a regular on my studying mixtape.
Vexations sounds like more stressful Animal Crossing museum music, which seems fitting
Your pronunciation was on point !
Thanks, this is gonna inspire more ambient music!! This was fascinating!! I make ambient music of my own inspired by Spyro 2, as its homeworlds are just ambient music.
Man, this reminds me of a lot of songs in Rain World. Incredibly atmospheric, enhancing the sense of enormity, isolation, and wonder. The songs with more apparent rhythm are almost exclusively used in dangerous situations, but a lot of it is very vague when it comes to keeping time. It's a game where the point is to get lost and stumble into gods.
Personally, I'm a big fan of Blood Sweat and Tears version of Gymnop 1. Weirdly haunting.
my mums used to play this guy's stuff for me as a real little kid, always thought it was pleasantly meloncholic
I don't know if that has already been said, but your pronunciation of Gymnopédie was 100% on point.