Today's blog is brought to you by Erik Satie- why? why not?I did stand outside his former home which is now the Musée-Placard d'Erik Satie-but I did not take a picture. Instead I took a picture of Paris from a few blocks away.
Something Satie said: from this website
"Everyone will tell you I am not a musician. That is correct.From the very beginning of my career I class 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 weighed 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 weighed. 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."
