Vexations

Satie's Vexations. We're doing it this semester with my composition seminar.

840 repetitions.

Mind telling us what this piece is, exactly?

Mind telling us what this piece is, exactly?

Not at all. It is a short bass line, followed by the same bass line with a harmony over it in diminished triads. Then it's the bass line again, followed by the bass line with the inversion of the first harmony. It's written deliberately sadistically hard, with double-flats and double-sharps all over the place. You take those four repetitions of the bass line (two with harmonies), and then you repeat the whole thing 840 times.

The idea is that if you relax, and sort of get into a meditative state, you can play it, but if you start worrying about making a mistake, that's the first thing that happens. Because the harmonies are so flat (as in, they're all one type of triad) it's very easy to hear mistakes. And it's so difficult that it's easy to freak out. And if you panic, you're done.

So, each person in my seminar class is going to take 3 shifts of 20 minutes: 1 playing, 1 listening, and 1 marking the number of repetitions that have happened. We're going to start (on the date that is as of now TBA) at 6:30 AM, and we'll end around 11 at night.

You're joking!

My piano teacher has suggested the exact same thing. I can't believe you're going to do it that long.

You should bring some beer.