Satie's Furniture Music: Designed to be Ignored?

[@InventorZahran]

It's also worth noting that recorded music was just starting to become widely available in the early 20th century, when Satie was developing his idea of 'furniture music'. Maybe I'm overstating, but I think recordings had a great effect on how we viewed music's role and purpose in daily life. Before the age of recording, all music was live. It was rare to spend a significant amount of time in a place where music was playing, without specifically being there to listen to it (except for select venues where live background music was present, such as banquet halls and some resturaunts). But once recorded music was widely distributed, it became possible to have music playing anywhere, anytime, and for as long as necessary, without the need for live musicians. This would've been when most people first started listening to music at home, and when they began to hear it more commonly in public spaces. Music became a ubiquitous presence in life, no longer confined to the court, church, and concert hall.

[@sluggo206]

That''s what I was thinking too. Most people couldn't hire a live musician or have a relative play in the background while they washed dishes or had dinner together -- and the relative would want to eat. Phonograph recordings had to be harsh just to be heard over the hiss and 78 rpm steel cartridge, and somebody would have to reset the needle every three minutes to make it loo. It's the opposite now, where recorded music is the norm, and people attend only a few concerts a year if any -- so they choose concerts they want to listen closely to.

[@1earflapping]

Very astute observation.

[@anti64]

Erik Satie's furniture music has legit saved my scholarity by helping me concentrate on school works despite my inhability to do so. I graduated highschool 2 weeks ago and he was the first person I wanted to thank.

[@n1t_]

You can make one straight line from "Erik Satie - Furniture music" to "LoFi Study Music". Btw can we call it "Furniture Music" instead of "Elevator Music". This gives it a much more magical appereance.

[@Ninejahman]

Wallpaper music.

[@sluggo206]

@@Ninejahman Wallpaper sounds best of the three. Furniture and elevator are different kinds of experiences: furniture sits in the background in your home, elevators are what you go in for a a day. Wallpaper would be unusual in an elevator but it can be in both, and it's related to wallflower, which is a similar thing from a different perspective (the wallflower itself).

[@sluggo206]

@@davidcavalari226 Some office buildings do. One has a different song at each parking level outside the elevator, like "New York, New York" on one floor. That reminds me of a college joke. We couldn't tell whether a dorm elevator was going up or down, so we suggested it play Beethoven going up, and :"Highway to Hell" going down.

[@nomadicleopard]

Bossa nova is elevator music... unfortunately

[@Serai3]

It's kind of amusing since I find I can NEVER ignore Satie's music. It's some of my favorite music, and it always changes my mood to one of calm when I hear it. As to Carrelage: No, I could not put up with this one. But it's not the repetition; it's the tune. It's intrusive and insistent, it _pokes_ at me. That's not furniture music. His Gymnopides, on the other hand, are gentle and humble; they don't shove their way into your ears, which is why I love them. Their conversation is intimate - it smiles.

[@InventorZahran]

Carrelage has too much rhythmic motion to be ignorable.

[@MateodeJovel]

Carrelage is begging for continued movement. I can't help but imagine the start of a studio ghibli movie

[@musicfriendly12]

Carrelage for me is more minimalistic than background music per say, it's a super minimalism that doesn't evolve at all

[@TheTrueAltoClef]

I remember a moment where I was playing Gymnopedie 1 on Piano. I was just playing it for fun, but I had this strong inclination to repeat the first two bars. After a while when the repetition of those 2 bars became engraved in my muscle memory, that had a significant effect one me. I was repeating those 2 bars, while listening intently, it simultaniously brought me in this sort of trance. I felt engulfed by a sense of calmness. I went into a peculiar state where I could play the music unconsciously, this allowed me to dissociate from the performer role, and allowed me to view it from the role of a spectator. It felt like I was at the same time the perfomer and the listener

[@groofay]

I've always loved Satie, he was a real artistic revolutionary and it's good to see videos like this that give him his proper due.

[@Ninejahman]

So Satie pioneered the repetitive/minimalist genre as well, what a boss!

[@johncrwarner]

I went to a performance of "Einstein on the Beach" at Amsterdam Opera House and they had set it up so you could here it in the bar. The idea was that you should wander round during the performance. We did it and ate a snack meal during act II but most people stayed in their seats for the full opera not what Philip Glass wanted.

[@lithiumdeuteride]

I wasn't tempted to buy one, but I was reminded of the fact that I had been avoiding the beach...

[@johncrwarner]

@@lithiumdeuteride Those prematurely air conditioned supermarkets are a b*gger, aren't they?

[@Sshooter444]

I would gladly hang out in the bar if I were dragged to a Philip Glass opera!

[@johncrwarner]

@@Sshooter444 The idea from Philip Glass was that you could do other things while listening (or not) to the opera.

[@kassemir]

I feel like lo-fi hip-hop would've been worth mentioning. They're often titled "lo-fi beats to study to" - thus in a similar way sort instructing a second primary activity. They also use a lot of simple chord loops and melodies with a lot of repetition. Even going so far as to mix it so that the drums and percussion sound weak, compared to more modern sounding music, so they don't grab the intended listener's attention. I'd say there's a strong case to view this phenomenon in the same lineage as the other examples at the end of the video.

[@Hailey_Paige_1937]

Yeah! I was surprised Lo-fi wasn’t mentioned.

[@dulistanheman]

Lo-fi becoming the furniture music of KZbinrs. Just wait, the next 5 years people will started to recognize it as part of Muzak.

[@goonercestlavie]

Vidéo intéressante. Good perspective. Good work. Very interesting deep character indeed. ''The more I know of man, the more I admire dogs'' - Erik Satie “I must have forgotten my umbrella in the elevator. My umbrella must be very worried that it lost me.” - ES ''Laying face down on your stomach on the floor is fine. However, this position is inconvenient for licking the hand of the one kicking you in the butt. ” - ES ''Pianos are like bank notes, it only pleases the ones who put their hand on them.'' - ES ''Why attack God himself? He is as unhappy as we can be. Since the death of his poor son, he no longer has a taste for anything.'' - ES “The air in Paris is so bad that I always boil it before I breathe.” - ES “My doctor always told me to smoke. He adds to his advice: - Smoke, my friend: otherwise, another will smoke instead of you.” - ES ''It is bad to drown after eating.'' -ES ''Despite our informations being false, we do not guarantee them.'' - ES ''My name is Erik Satie, like everyone else'' - ES

[@jacobscardino4330]

Carrelage Phonique is one of the most perfect examples of beauty in simplicity!

[@dhpbear2]

4:58 - As my late brother would quip: "Music played during a meal is an insult to the chef as well as the composer."

[@lacrimatorium]

Excellent exploration of a sound. I actually found a sealed copy of a Muzak™ LP in a dumpster. What was most interesting was the copy on the back. It said this was NOT FOR SALE. It was not for the public. And explained carefully its mode of musical manipulation, and how to generate sales. Interestingly actual Muzak™ has almost disappeared. Now one just hears endless pop music everywhere. I almost miss the aural hypnosis.

[@print-helloworld-8977]

I love erik satie. He lived a depressing life, and was an outcast in the world of composition. He was never “accepted”. I honor his works and will continue to play them on the piano.

[@lundsweden]

If Satie was around today, he would make a killing composing ringtones, OS startup sounds ect!

[@poweroffriendship2.0]

The Muzak songs reminds me of the soundtrack from _Ren and Stimpy_ and _Spongebob SquarePants_ where the background music gives off the 1950s - 1960s American neighborhood vibe. It makes both shows feel magical and relaxing juxtaposed to the absurd and strange humor.

[@ramblinevilmushroom]

I cant believe that in a video about background music, you didn't even mention lofi study and sleep music.

[@dhpbear2]

8:38 - I'd find this endless loop to 2/4 time distracting as a rattle of an air-conditioner unit! Yes, music must be INTERESTING!

[@InventorZahran]

It's too interesting to blend into the background, but too short and repetitive to listen to for more than a minute.

[@davidcoomber4050]

Far to many so called music lovers are transfixed by the listening experience and miss the atmospheric food for the soul , music is energy that sets a mood

[@Hailey_Paige_1937]

For anyone who may be wondering why Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports” sounds familiar, it was featured in “The Lovely Bones” soundtrack.

[@wpark1991]

I LOVE Satie's music. He's considered an impressionist composer but also a Dadaist composer as well. His orchestral writing in the ballet Parade is incredible. His piano suite Sports et Divertissement is a masterpiece. His Embryons Desseches and Sonatine Bureaucratique are one of my favorites as well. He was a genius

[@CadillacL]

I was born in ‘71. One of my greatest memories was going into a mall,grocery, department, furniture store & here that music.

[@jandenbrok9574]

That's funny. Satie's searching piano pieces make me sit down and listen with full attention.

[@simongregory3114]

Fascinating. It seems he invented the concept but maybe never arrived at a successful implementation of it. I make live background music as part of my living... playing guitar with a singer in bars. I actually love doing this kind of music. We are pretty good at it, and I like watching people quietly enjoying it, or ignoring it while they socialise, or singing along to themselves, and also, frequently, listening intently for a period of time and showing great appreciation. I once thought this was the lowest form of professional music making, now I find a lot pleasure in providing this for people and am happy to do so.

[@tammylaronde8593]

I find Satie's music to be very soothing to listen to but also play.

[@colinsmith5148]

Perhaps we should go back to the baroque period (a time Satie may have had an affinity for) to discover the origins of furniture music.. the Tafelmusik (table music) of Telemann, for instance.

[@foreignparticle1320]

I thought the same. Satie certainly didn't invent the idea of background music. And then there was incidental music in the theatre, which also pre-dates Satie's efforts.

[@sihplak]

I think the progression into minimalism (and also ambient, for example) is the fuller completion of furniture music, because incessant and unvarying repetition draws attention to its undulation; it implies motionless motion. It's an unresolved dialectic. I think minimalism, therein, is actually the functional "furniture music", because the protracted nature of musical development of the minimal ideas allows for the music to be backgrounded in a way that is unobtrusive. Another example that's perfect is Ligeti's "Musica Ricercata 7". There's basically a single slow, slightly changing melody with a constantly flowing repeating out-of-time left-hand ostinato. In that manner, it's why I think these genres are more effective. In a way, that minimal level of development of interest is enough to ease the mind with a sensation of moving forward without drawing attention in any substantive way. As an analogy, I think some of Satie's furniture music is like spinning around in place. You get dizzy and disoriented by doing the same thing, by moving without moving. Minimalism, however, is like a slow walk in a spiral pattern, or perhaps like floating in a lazy river; you're not really doing much moving or changing where you are in any meaningful way, but the manner in which you alter where you are is subtly different enough to allow a soothing backgrounding of the nature of that movement. If there is no change as a consequence of movement, therefore, it means that there is a rupture between cause and effect. Movement causes a change in position normally, so to move without changing position is jarring and irritating. However, moving with some minimal degree of a change in position satisfies that need for the sensory realization of momentum in distance without the change being of significant interest.

[@musicfriendly12]

Minimalism is based on long processes, so basically yeah, Satie is hammering the same thing into you for hours, a good minimal composer takes and idea, and repeats it, adds things, removes, shifts, etc, slowly through repetition, if most normal music is a journey, minimalism is a "journey" that repeats and ends up in forming a huge journey, as if you are walking and take 9 steps backwards for each 10 going forwards, you're still moving forward and thus evolving

[@tyennatim1]

Now I get it! And why I love rhis music, along with Brian Eno's Ambient compositions, Music for Airports et.al. Thanks for this doco., it all now makes sense, along with the Furniture.

[@eriksatieofficiel]

Interesting, I did not know about this composer and this furniture music thing.

[@eccentriastes6273]

This reminds me of how some NES games, due to technical limitations, would have music tracks that were just loops of a few seconds. I'm pretty sure nobody liked that and people preferred something more like the classic Mario theme as background music.

[@ishdelville]

Thanks a lot for this video, Satie was a great avant-garde composer.

[@pabloapostar7275]

Carrelage Phonique (7:00) eventually made me think of "workout music", e.g., jazzercise and aerobicise music. It just needs to be arranged for bass guitar and drums.

[@NicleT]

Carrelage musique is so short, it would make a better ringtone. But this said, there’s so much to do with those four bars. Tempo changes, instruments swap, etc. etc. I love Satie. I was very please to see this video. Excellent! Bravo for your research.

[@Mr-Prasguerman]

Seria bom incluir o elemento " improviso "

[@wisemank9904]

This is why I love listening to Satie. Thank you for a great lecture! 👍

[@MemphiStig]

In a way, this kind of thing predates Satie by quite a long time, including "Water Music" by Handel, among others, which was background music for patrons, so they could show off how important and wealthy they were by having music playing that no one pays attention to. But I love that Satie made a deliberate point of making it uninteresting through sheer repetitive stubbornness. (Take that, minimalism! Take it 840 times!) I think it's too obtrusive, and I find more familiar music, even if only familiar in style, easier to ignore, but bravo anyway.

[@garaughty]

Excellent insights on a topic that often goes unnoticed !

[@brunosampaio2399]

Never heard the expression "furniture music". Very intersting. And thanks for presenting me Ambrose Thomas piece. Sounded beautiful, gonna check it out.

[@Hailey_Paige_1937]

I love Satie. I can listen to his music attentively or while distracted. I feel like Steve Reich took a lot of inspiration from Satie for some of his works.

[@rachelpops9239]

"Vexations" sounds like a troll for the players and audience

[@frenchimp]

It is meant to vex...

[@nodarikirtadze8220]

I think, I've found a new study playlist, thanks!!!

[@johnwade7430]

I used to work in Macdonalds, that company uses furniture music. It’s music was so annoying if you paid attention to it but when you were working it did become part of the background - you noticed it if and when it wasn’t there.

[@warreneckels4945]

In Indiana, McDonald's plays broadly popular pop music.

[@johnwade7430]

@@warreneckels4945 hmm, wish they played that in UK, a nice bit of Bhangra…:-)

[@colleenmurphy7812]

Very, very interesting!

[@djmacla2701]

Musakian?! Come on Oscar! Lol! Either way, a fascinating watch. The irony that his approach yielded some of the most interesting, memorable and impossible to ignore music ever written i.e Gymnopedie No.1.

[@zumpano33]

Terrific. Thank you and more please.

[@renarsdilevka6573]

Great perspective, Oscar :) Much appreciated and i enjoy the content very much. Just to add, i have a feeling that this reminds me Michael Nyman, he took it to more granular level. I sense while listening that "Acoustic Tiling" is the base how he likes to play with the repetition in his pieces. I absolutely love Michael Nyman.

[@MrBelial16]

Gotta love youtube recommendations sometimes. Thank you very much for this video essay!

[@soniabirsan8009]

Very interesting perspective! 👍😊

[@hiphopchild9540]

One of a very few who didn't spit on Jazz... I found out about him while reading on how jazz music was perceived during 19th century in europe...

[@archibald-yc5le]

Satie's Correlage Phonique sounds like a character selection menu

[@sirtalkalotdoolittle]

Satie and Holst's Planets make some of the best background music for videos because they enhance the narration or action by being subtle and unobtrusive. Of course, only use public domain sources. Thank you for posting this.

[@Capyrate]

Carrelage Phonique is very cute imo. Very repetitive, so it needs not to be very loud, but imo it makes for a cute little background sound. Also, I adore Satie. The man may be my favorite composer of all times, so anything about him, I say yes please. 💕

[@cjjones258]

A eccentric man who was ahead of his time

[@crnel]

I have such a musical ear that background music playing in stores grabs my attention especially if there are too frequent repetitions or overly repeated pop music melodic patterns, etc. 10 bars of constantly repeating music would drive me to Irritation Land.

[@dlee645]

This reminds me of the New Age music that was popular in the 80s: Windham Hill Records, George Winston, etc.

[@morophineswordphich8229]

Long ago Satie laid the groundwork for vaporwave. Beautiful.

[@dotka95]

You know background music went too far when you hear Adeste fideles while grocery shopping in July. Happened to me. XD

[@Roarshark12]

Fantastic and informative video, thanks!

[@TheRagingPlatypus]

Never heard of Satie before,. I really liked it.

[@FondueBrothers]

Well I've learned something today. Thanks!

[@scharnhorstkaisarbeethoven]

I was for first thinking that caralegé phonique has very unsettling sequence but it really fade away after just a few bars and i understood each and every thing you were saying then

[@WilliamSFBikeTour]

Thank you. Peace.

[@BryanLLe]

What a well-constructed and well-researched video! I'm a fan :D

[@Sandra-hc4vo]

Great video! Thanks!

[@amirebi1349]

Love these series keep them coming

[@burkhardstackelberg1203]

While he was not well reseived by critiques, he still had core of followers and listeners, as well as friendships with fellow composers as known and influential like his contemporary Debussy and a group of younger composers known as Les Six.

[@divinicron5454]

Can we get a video on Basil Poledouris and Conan The Barbarian?

[@Pingoping]

I'd say if a theme gets stuck in your head, it's failed it's job as background music. Repeating a four bar phrase so many times is bound to get it stuck in your head and grab your attention. I like the idea, but he missed the execution on that one for me

[@danielgreen4484]

Your videos are not only thoroughly researched and annotated with your insights with respect to the composers and their music but the visual aspects of the videos are also highly polished such that they are on par with the quality of broadcast television documentaries.

[@theawesomesausage]

I'd love an analysis of Thomas Bergersen from Two Steps From Hell.

[@smkh2890]

I call it 'wallpaper music', but Satie gets the credit for making a conceptual leap here. Now we know him to be the grand-daddy of Minimalism!

[@刘汉卿-x1q]

Background music could not come into prominence without the technology of recording and replaying.

[@0bzen22]

His furniture music reminds me of a Wes Anderson movie, for some reason.

[@valmarsiglia]

04:32 Satie, the most steampunk-looking of all composers.

[@Uxcis]

YESSS MORE SATIE PLSSSS THANK YOU!!!!!

[@northernbrother1258]

And yet Muzak, or "elevator music," which was designed to be ignored has achieved pop culture status and become its own musical genre!

[@wladdaimpala88]

I WISH we still had muzak. Hearing Adele at the grocery store makes me want to shove corn cobs in my ears.

[@warreneckels4945]

In the 1980s, I worked at a supermarket that played Muzak. It mangled an awful lot of popular music beyond recognition. Just before I changed jobs, Muzak tried its hand at instrumental rap.

[@Paolo8772]

Un Salon sounds a little like Le Dance Macabre by Saint Sens Am I the only one that notices? Oops I spoke too soon; you covered that. Now to answer your question: recognizing it did make it stick out more than Satie intended. Perhaps most of the 1st audience for Un Salon was less familiar with Le Dance Macabre than people who watch your channel. "Supermarket music" 1st started to be a thing in the 50s in America written in by American composers usually with Jewish and German background (the most famous being Klessman.) That kinda thing was still popular in the early 70s!

[@holliethomasmusic]

Ha! I like how you subtly snuck the Hanon exercise in there as an example of pointless repetition!

[@warreneckels4945]

The United terminal at O'Hare Airport in Chicago commissioned Brian Eno to write music to be played near the mechanical sidewalk leading to and from the terminal itself. Chicagoans were not amused since the music, at least when played through speakers in a modestly lit hallway, actually sounded a little bit foreboding, which is not the atmosphere you want in an airport. United replaced the Eno music with selections from Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" which was a much better match for the city's tastes.

[@jake.tones.]

So, what was that Muzak song you played at the start called?

[@sepgorut2492]

That was a great vid.

[@bubffm]

Pianist Igor Levit performed „Vexations“ during COVID lockdown.

[@ftumschk]

I latched onto the first appearance of "Danse Macabre", but it faded into the background with subsequent repetitions. PS: for future reference, the "L" in Milhaud is silent (pron. "mee-Oh")

[@michaelfitzurka5659]

well done

[@sluggo206]

People nowadays listen to both kinds of music both ways at different times, so the 1920s musical establishment sounds narrow-minded. But the technology may have had something to do with it, as InventorZahran below says. I don't know whether the late 20th century ambient artists knew about Satie or consciously imitated him. I only discovered Satie a couple years ago on KZbin, or maybe it was a classical radio station. But I'd been an ambient fan in the 90s, and then again starting in the late 2000s with SomaFM.

[@martinheld9946]

Pls do some Grieg stuff

[@frenchimp]

Not sure one should take everything Satie said literally. He had a great sense of humour.

[@robfriedrich2822]

6:57 perfect ringtone

[@brianzayman2228]

2:45. -- correction: minimalism was not written to be ignored, even though for some people its repetativeness and euphonius sound invites this

[@gcapeletti]

While I'm a big fan of Satie's music, I think he suffered from a common flaw: the illusion that your audience will evenly perceive your work as you intend. Like a friend of mine used to say: "when your work travels a couple of feet, it's not yours anymore." There are as many different perceptions as there are people, so this intended purpose of a work of art doesn't work for me at all.

[@paxwallace8324]

He incorporated harmonic sophistication that certainly got Debussy's attention. He pioneered the rebellion against hyper-tutonic romanticism.

[@erikbihari3625]

Video game music been tackled here?

[@jayducharme]

I really enjoyed your observations. IMO, the only problem with Satie's explorations is that they're too short and thus call attention to themselves when they repeat. If he had written a piece that was, say, 32 bars and which seamlessly looped back onto itself, then it probably would have worked just as he intended.

[@Mr-Prasguerman]

Acho que precisaríamos que fosse como uma Sinfonia de mahler........

[@anthonymccarthy4164]

I never hated Satie's music until I played through a collection of it for sight-reading practice. I haven't been able to tolerate it ever since.

[@user_-qg6yd]

How come?

[@anthonymccarthy4164]

@@user_-qg6yd It is superficial and uninteresting and overplayed by superficial people not interested in having a musical experience. It sucks.

[@SuperTicklemonsters]

Someone missed the point lol

[@anthonymccarthy4164]

@@SuperTicklemonsters On the contrary, I read Satie's stupid ideas about music, he achieved them and his music sucks.

[@GavinPascal]

Baroque and galant music was already furniture music, in the sense that its value rested on syntax rather than on semantics, which instead became prominent in romantic music. Also, the background role is contingent to furniture music, as the video also shows.

[@dhpbear2]

13:51 - The same might be said about how video killed the proverbial radio star in the early 1980s!

[@caden.927]

"repetition legitimizes" -Theodore Adorno -Adam Neely

[@PlayLikeTheGreatscom]

Awesome video, as always! However, the high treble frequencies of your narrator voice are EQed very loud, so your sibilants consonants hiss very unpleasantly :/

[@chrismuratore4451]

I love Satie. His music makes me feel things no other compositions can.