What you DIDN’T KNOW about this MASTERPIECE

my name is nari Sol I'm a Pianist composer and in this video we're going to dive into the genius of Eric satis gymnopedi number one I've gathered three characteristics that I love about this piece that show how Sati was centuries ahead of his time and I want to show you why I think this piece is a lot more complex and difficult to play than a lot of people assume this episode is sponsored by Tom play who is providing the interactive sheet music that I'll be using throughout the video I'm going to first go over an analysis section then we'll present to you a fully annotated performance of the piece followed by a special postlude that I wrote that accentuates some of the more Jazzy and pianistic elements of the original the three characteristics that I'm about to mention all highlight City's unique approach to composition how he uses traditional building blocks of music but in very unconventional ways ways that to me are very elegantly weird the first thing that I want to mention about the piece is that the rhythm is actually not so easy to play the pieces monorhythmic in nature and hardly has any variation other than this figure and straight quarter notes thereon after in order for this piece to really shine you have to play it in a very poised and peaceful Manner and in order to do this you have to have a lot of control at the piano even though the melody is quite lyrical you can't approach it in a very expressive and overly romantic way also in order to achieve a very weightless and tender sound you have to be careful with the chords you have to make sure they're not played unevenly or with any kind of strain speaking of chords let's move on to point number two a tonal Center is never truly confirmed the piece starts off with two chords G Major seven and D major seven going back and forth in a way that isn't really clear are we in G major or D major and even though the melody points towards D major we never really have a Cadence that confirms it so have a listen to what it would sound like if there was a clear Cadence here foreign the peaceful quality of it we then have a turnaround into E minor have Meandering chords over a deep pedal and at this point we're really not sure what key we're in so T shifts between sections that are based around major and minor keys and modes like Dorian and phrygian all while keeping the hierarchy of the notes and Harmony ambiguous now let's talk a little bit about his use of chords the use of seventh chords in a very colorful slightly non-functional way is quite similar to Jazz and a lot of contemporary music out there and that's why I was inspired to lean into the jazzier elements of this piece for my post loot which you'll hear later on the next point is a bit more abstract and subjective but I think it is very significant and that is that the piece is not ambitious in any way what I mean by this is that the piece isn't really trying to be anything it doesn't have much purpose no direction and it's not serious like a lot of pieces written in the classical music sphere the piece was written in 1888 and just to give you some context here are some pieces that were also written in the 1880s Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture Frank's violin Sonata and Symphony Number Three by Samsung number one is very different from these pieces it's meditative reflective less formal and also Almost Boring if you try to evaluate it as a performance piece now let's do a quick experiment so just imagine [Music] this actually sounds like something that can be written today but really Sati didn't go down this route he kept it very sparse oh and that's in line with his concept of furniture music which is basically the first form of background music to ever be invented so T saw the value of music that is not deliberately listened to and paid attention to and I quite like this idea in fact it's one of my life goals to create background music for my dogs I think it's kind of a shame that in certain circles back then and even now satis music is dismissed because it lacks form it doesn't have virtuosity and it lacks gravitas but I obviously disagree with this the piece actually demands quite a bit from The Pianist in my opinion so now I'm going to move on to a performance of the piece with a fully annotated score provided by Tom play the sponsors of this video so a quick word about them first Tom play is an interactive sheet music database that guides you through the process of learning a piece with all kinds of tools such as a built-in playback of the score meaning you can point to any part of the sheet music and hear what it actually sounds like you can also add your own notations to the score adjust the tempo turn on a metronome Loop a particular section and if you're more of a visual learner you can refer to the instrument models which really come in handy so if you look here you can see which Keys need to be pressed on the keyboard as you go you can even record yourself to monitor your own progress one of my favorite things about tomplay is how you can use it to learn pieces that have Ensemble parts so songs with accompaniment and even piano concertos so a huge thank you to tomplay for sponsoring this video and now on to the performance foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] I hope you enjoyed the music and the video let me know your thoughts in the comments thank you so much to tomplay again for sponsoring this video thank you to my patrons for your continued support and if you haven't subscribed already to this Channel Make sure you do so so that I get to see you in the next video

Channel: Nahre Sol

Views: 112,727

Keywords: piano, music composition, harmony, music theory, nahre sol, classical music, improvisation, pianist, film scoring, jazz, modern music, satie, gymnopedie 1, film music, minimalism, french music, background music, erik satie

Id: IGkCbpO6EL8

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023