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Topic: Satie was a strange, strange man  (Read 3746 times)

Offline pianochick93

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Satie was a strange, strange man
on: August 21, 2008, 01:04:51 PM
A friend has recently lent me his book of Satie pieces, and I've been having a look at the rather odd comments written on the pieces.
Some of them make sense, some tell a story, some do both but are just plain weird!

Some of my favourites are:
Quel joli rocher (What a pretty boulder!)
Comme un rossignol qui aurait mal aux dents (Like a nightingale with a toothache)
sans rougir en dedans (without your finger blushing)
J'ai envie d'un chapeau en acajou massif (I want a solid mahogany hat)
Madame Chose a un parapluie en os (Mrs. What's-her'name has a bone umbrella
and
Mademoiselle Machin epouse un homme qui est sec comme un coucou (Miss Whoozit is marrying a man who's dry as a cuckoo)

They make me laugh, but they really make me wonder what on earth possessed him.

(please excuse any lack of little accent thingies above letters, I don't learn French so don't know where they go, if indeed they do go anywhere.
h lp! S m b dy  st l   ll th  v w ls  fr m  my  k y b  rd!

I am an imagine of your figmentation.

Offline bench warmer

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #1 on: August 21, 2008, 03:48:06 PM
I think he also had something like 30 identical suits and shirts in his closet so he could wear exactly the same thing everyday while some of his stuff was getting cleaned (or aired-out).

 Indeed eccentric,  ne c'est pas?

But I can almost understand the comment: Miss Whoozit is marrying a man who's dry as a cuckoo.
Why would she want to marry a man whose juices aren't flowing?   8)

... But then, Why should Satie know anything about that?

Offline shortyshort

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #2 on: August 21, 2008, 06:15:20 PM
I like,

Tres "neuf heures du matin"

Very "nine in the morning"

Yes, a very strange man.
If God really exists, then why haven't I got more fingers?

Offline alpacinator1

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #3 on: August 21, 2008, 08:24:53 PM
Haha, he sure was strange. He wrote a piece that was just one simple theme repeated for eight hours straight. Once I listened to a midi of it for about three hours, and by that time I literally couldn't hear it at all because my ears had adapted to it. Quite a strange phenomenon I must say! In fact the only reason I listened for that long is because I didn't realise I was listening to it.
Working on:
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Offline nanabush

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #4 on: August 21, 2008, 10:12:51 PM
Vexations I think it's called... yea that's pretty messed up lol.
Interested in discussing:

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Offline retrouvailles

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #5 on: August 21, 2008, 11:02:46 PM
It's not as messed up as a piece that John Cage wrote for organ, which is called As Slow As Possible. The piece lasts 639 years and has been playing for about 5 years. The sheet music is only a page, I think, so weights have to be pressed on the keys on the organ. My money is on John Cage for being the weirdest composer to ever live.

Offline Etude

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #6 on: August 22, 2008, 12:08:32 AM
It's not as messed up as a piece that John Cage wrote for organ, which is called As Slow As Possible. The piece lasts 639 years and has been playing for about 5 years. The sheet music is only a page, I think, so weights have to be pressed on the keys on the organ. My money is on John Cage for being the weirdest composer to ever live.

To my knowledge, Cage didn't actually write it to last 639 years.  It was simply an Organ arrangement of an earlier 30 minute-ish piano piece titled ASLSP (hence Organ2 ASLSP).  The whole 639 year performance is just some stupid stunt by the organisers.

Yeah Satie was weird.  lolontopicness




EDIT!:  https://www.john-cage.halberstadt.de/new/index.php?seite=cdundtoene&l=e

Listen to the recording!  There are actually people there!  I hear some fumblings.

Offline aewanko

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #7 on: August 22, 2008, 02:55:42 AM
you should look at his sonatine bureaucratique. very weird instructions.
Trying to return to playing the piano.

Offline pianochick93

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #8 on: August 22, 2008, 08:23:33 AM

But I can almost understand the comment: Miss Whoozit is marrying a man who's dry as a cuckoo.


After I posted I actually read the title of the song, it's called 'The Woman Who Talked Too Much' and I figure that comment and a couple of others were things that she talked a lot about.
h lp! S m b dy  st l   ll th  v w ls  fr m  my  k y b  rd!

I am an imagine of your figmentation.

Offline retrouvailles

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #9 on: August 22, 2008, 08:32:12 AM
you should look at his sonatine bureaucratique. very weird instructions.

Those aren't instructions. It's actually a story being told.

Offline quasimodo

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #10 on: August 22, 2008, 10:33:03 AM
sans rougir en dedans (without your finger blushing)

That (wrong!) translation makes me roll on the floor laughing. Actually he says "without blushing inside". Sooo... painochick where's your finger?

" On ne joue pas du piano avec deux mains : on joue avec dix doigts. Chaque doigt doit être une voix qui chante"

Samson François

Offline pianochick93

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #11 on: August 22, 2008, 12:15:13 PM
That (wrong!) translation makes me roll on the floor laughing. Actually he says "without blushing inside". Sooo... painochick where's your finger?



 :-[ ;D

Oops, I just read what it said in the book! I don't speak French at all.
h lp! S m b dy  st l   ll th  v w ls  fr m  my  k y b  rd!

I am an imagine of your figmentation.

Offline concerto_love

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #12 on: August 22, 2008, 01:17:12 PM
gyahahahahahah  ;D
when dignity, love, and joy meet...

OMG, it's spa time!!! ;D

Offline tompilk

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #13 on: August 22, 2008, 09:22:10 PM
wasn't satie the one who went through a period of eating only white foods?
Working on: Schubert - Piano Sonata D.664, Ravel - Sonatine, Ginastera - Danzas Argentinas

Offline bernhard

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #14 on: August 26, 2008, 05:55:46 PM
Besides being a composer, Satie tried his hand at writing. His wonderful “A Mammal´s Notebook” is obligatory reading. Here is a bit:

What I am

Everyone will tell you I am not a musician. That is correct.

From the very beginning of my career I classed myself a phonometrographer. My work is completely phonometrical. Take my Fils des Étoiles, or my Morceaux en forme de Poire, my En habit de Cheval or my Sarabandes - it is evident that musical ideas played no part whatsoever in their composition. Science is the dominating factor.

Besides, I enjoy measuring a sound much more than hearing it. With my phonometer in my hand, I work happily and with confidence.

What haven't I weighted or measured? I've done all Beethoven, all Verdi, etc. It's fascinating.

The first time I used a phonoscope, I examined a B flat of medium size. I can assure you that I have never seen anything so revolting. I called in my man to show it to him.

On my phono-scales a common or garden F sharp registered 93 kilos. It came out of a fat tenor whom I also weighted.

Do you know how to clean sounds? It's a filthy business. Stretching them out is cleaner; indexing them is a meticulous task and needs good eyesight. Here, we are in the realm of pyrophony.

To write my Pièces Froides, I used a caleidophone recorder. It took seven minutes. I called in my man to let him hear them.

I think I can say that phonology is superior to music. There's more variety in it. The financial return is greater, too. I owe my fortune to it.

At all events, with a motodynamophone, even a rather inexperienced phonometrologist can easily note down more sounds that the most skilled musician in the same time, using the same amount of effort. This is how I have been able to write so much.

And so the future lies with philophony.”

(A Mammal's Notebook by Erik Satie. Edited by Ornella Volta. 1996. Atlas Press, London.)

Best wishes,
Bernhard
The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side. (Hunter Thompson)

Offline teresa_b

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #15 on: August 26, 2008, 11:47:12 PM
I've always been amused by Satie's oddball titles and instructions.  For example, I have played the piece called "Desiccated Embryos," which has titles of "holothuroideans" (sea cucumbers), crustaceans, etc.  He has little notes in the score about the creatures assembling for a meeting, lazily sitting around and all sorts of funny things. 

He was apparently a friend of the painter Rene Magritte, which might explain some things.  Magritte was a surrealist who liked paradoxical images and strange juxtapositions.  (For example he did a painting of a pipe titled "This is not a pipe".) 

Teresa

Offline quasimodo

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #16 on: August 27, 2008, 01:51:59 AM
Omg!
Is that a Bernhard's post?  :o
" On ne joue pas du piano avec deux mains : on joue avec dix doigts. Chaque doigt doit être une voix qui chante"

Samson François

Offline pianochick93

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #17 on: August 27, 2008, 11:48:48 AM
Besides being a composer, Satie tried his hand at writing. His wonderful “A Mammal´s Notebook” is obligatory reading. Here is a bit:

...and so on...

Wow, I can see why everyone really likes your posts..thanks for that, I enjoyed it.  :)
h lp! S m b dy  st l   ll th  v w ls  fr m  my  k y b  rd!

I am an imagine of your figmentation.

Offline concerto_love

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Re: Satie was a strange, strange man
Reply #18 on: August 27, 2008, 01:36:30 PM
yeah, bernhard is really a veteran  ;D
when dignity, love, and joy meet...

OMG, it's spa time!!! ;D
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