Re: [microsound] memory and melody

[dbuchwald <dagmar.buchwald@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I should have consulted Google first.  Here is an article explaining why the
piece is so difficult to remember: http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/article3.html

Page dedicated to it: http://musicweb.hmt-hannover.de/satie/

You can listen to it here: http://www.ergophizmiz.com/vexations.htm
and here: http://splorg.org/~b/music/vexations.html

And, ooops, it seems to be quite known among people interested in
experimental and ambient music so sorry if I made such a fuzz about an old
shoe.

Dagmar

dbuchwald wrote:

> Hi Ross,
>
> puzzling.  I don't know what the mechanism is but I don't think that
> tempo or unresolvedness alone is responsible.  Reminds me of a very weird
> experience with Erik Satie music.  He wrote a small piece for piano
> called "Vexations" and his wish was that it should be played 24 hours
> continuously.  It so happened that a small group of people staged it over
> here (Germany) according to his wishes (in the 80ies that was).  Now the
> whole night was quite memorable: a small bunch of interested people
> trying to stay in the small theater for 24 hours; everything was done in
> white, even the food served was exclusively white, several piano players
> taking shifts in playing the piece.  People walked about, talked, ate,
> slept, whatever.  Now although the whole setting was quite memorable and
> although I was much younger then and easier to impress and although I
> spent almost 20 hours of the 24 hours in this room continuously exposed
> to that piece of music -- I couldn't and cannot remember a thing of it.
> When I happen to hear it somewhere I know that it is *probably*
> "Vexations" by Erik Satie and that's it.  The weird thing is that equally
> small and unresolved piano pieces by Satie -- in a similar tempo and
> character -- such as "The Gymnopédies" stick to my memory very well
> although I heard them less often, certainly not for 20 hours on end
> (whether I could hum them is another question; the Gymnopédie I like best
> is in my head right now, I can hear it, I could try to indicate the
> whereabouts of the sounds somewhere in the air, I certainly remember the
> tempo, I can sort of hum it but only accompanied by gestures) .
>
> I have a hunch that Satie wanted to achieve that effect (actually you
> could call many of his pieces "ambient" although the term didn't exist at
> his time) and called his piece "Vexations" precisely because he knew it
> would vex people not being able to remember it after 24 hours of
> exposure.  But how did he achieve the effect?  Do other people on this
> list happen to know the piece and can they remember it? I can't.
>
> Dagmar
>
> ross birdwise wrote:
>
> > This post relates to vladislav delay's anima:
> >
> > Anima seems to be full of small melodic flourishes
> > (some of which are unresolved) and long extended
> > sequences of tones that seem to form melody over a
> > longer period of time than the average pop song.
> > There is also a multitude of fragmented and richly
> > textured sounds occuring at almost all times, in
> > addition to frequent timbral changes.
> >
> > Perhaps the melody question also raises issues of
> > duration when we speak of anima (not to mention how
> > other elements might cause distraction from the
> > apprehension of melody) .  Perhaps extremely simple
> > and unresolved melodies are harder for some people to
> > remember, as are extremely slow drawn out melodies.  I
> > find Beethoven very melodic and memorable. perhaps
> > this is due to a lot of exposure to beethoven in pop
> > culture?  or perhaps it is because his melodies are
> > complex enough to create a 'good' hook (but not too
> > intricate) and occur fast enough to allow many people
> > to group sequences of tones together
> > into memorable fragments.  Maybe we are socialized to
> > listen in this way?
> >
> > ross
> >
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