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Re: [microsound] memory and melody



Hi

( 02.11.17 12:54 +0100 ) dbuchwald:
> He wrote a small piece for piano called "Vexations" and his wish was
> that it should be played 24 hours continuously.

Not quite. The note says [approximately]: 
To play this 840 times, it is advisable to prepare in silence with
serious immobilities

And the most common interpretation of the 'score' has a 13 beat phrase
played 4 times, marked in very slow tempo. Doing the math:
13 * 4 * 840 = 43680 / 60 = 728 / 60 = 12 hours at 8th note = 60

Comes out about half, but that's still a long time.

> 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.

It's very chromatic and stubbornly non melodic.

> 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)

He had the idea of 'furniture music', which is pretty much like ambient
music [furniture in a more in a utilitarian sense ...].

Satie rocks!

-- 
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