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Author Topic: Let's all listen to the absolutely haunting Erik Satie composition: Vexations  (Read 3622 times)

Be My Head

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexations

Meant to be played 840 times in a row. I'm not suggesting we all actually listen to it 840 times in a row (though you can). But it would be awesome to get people to listen to it and post their thoughts.

This music is absolutely haunting, and it WILL get to you if you listen to it in seclusion for long enough.

http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/article3.html

I highly recommend reading a bit of the article on it first, I mean....

Quote
   
There is also a psycho-biographical reading of Vexations, in which Satie, tormented by conflicting desires of the spirit and the flesh, and deeply disturbed by the disastrous course of his relationship with Suzanne Valadon, exorcises his vexation in music. Imagine Satie sitting at the piano in his tiny apartment (cupboard would be closer the truth) in the Rue Cortot playing Vexations hour after hour, seeking spiritual solace - a kind of musical psychotherapy, perhaps.

And...

Quote
In Cage's famous aphorism, "In Zen they say: If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try it for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually one discovers that it's not boring at all but very interesting." 16 In a poetic sense,Vexations never finishes - the 840 repetitions are themselves but an instant in the eternal present in which the music exists like some Platonic form, obliterating memory, eluding analysis. In the words of an ancient Indian saying, "The music continues; it is we who walk away."

I listened to this last night and fell asleep with it on, and had a dream where I was trying to explain the music to a friend. Proof our dreams are controlled by what we do before sleeping, and the music we have playing.

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Will

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I've been listening to it for a brief period at work, and so far have found it to be soothing rather than haunting. I realize that it's kind of counterpoint to how this piece was intended, but I'd like to loop this for quite some time while writing, and see what if any effect it has on me.

I'm also reminded of the whole concept of binaural beats by this for some reason. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats
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Touch Me Im Sick

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Has a dissonant yet strangely beautiful and haunting (as OP said) tone to it. Not really repetitive (yet...I'm only like 5 minutes into it)
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Be My Head

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It's definitely repetitive, in the sense that the same bars of music are being repeated. However, the way it's composed, it's like you forget what you just listened to every time it ends. Apparently, even pianists who've played it hundreds of times have difficulty remembering it and have to focus on sight reading it when performing.

Really strange piece of music.
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scarred

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Strange, yes. Haunting, perhaps... If I was alone in a dark room I wouldn't want it to be playing.
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Be My Head

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John Cale, one of the pianists who performed it at the first public concert, is on an old game show here with the only member of the audience who sat through all 18 hours.

Love the audience's reaction to the music.
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