Satie Sarabande

This is Satie's Sarabande No. 2. Anybody have experience with this set and can offer suggestions? It is incredibly challenging, requiring a lot of chord checks. I'm just learning the piece now, but this should give you some idea of how it sounds. My music history textbook calls it "a piece having a merely improvised succession of chords presented in a monotonously repetitive form, with very little melody and rhythm and absolutely no counterpoint or development of ideas." I think that's not true, I hear harmony in it, even if it's very unconventional. Kind of bizarre how there seems to be a cadence every 2 measures, but then again, Satie wasn't exactly a mirror imagine of Haydn or Mozart.

I've got a new keyboard called the Williams Legato 88-Key. It was a deal on black friday, but perhaps this proves once and for all, you get what you pay for! This recording is using its built-in piano sound. It unfortunately has trouble with legato, when more than 4 notes are depressed at once it makes this weird noise. Probably going to sell it soon. Should have listened to the amazon.com review that said it was a toy piano :lol: The M-Audio keyboard didn't have a problem like this... Maybe I'll get a new sampler too. Getting kind of sick of my 5-dynamic level 2010 model of Acoustica Pianissimo. Funny how acoustic piano owners must contend with the season throwing off their tuning, whereas us digital piano owners have our own problems, even if ours are known to stay in perfect tune, and can even manipulate intonation!

 

Thanks for listening, Monica. Yes, I think I need to get it more in time generally and definitely keep those low notes sustained.

I agree. In fact, that was basically the one reason I bought the piano, was based on the piano sound being somewhat realistic, and that it had speakers so you could just play it out of the box, whereas the the M-Audio 88-key has to be attached to a computer and you listen through headphones. Hahahaha, I know, isn't that the epitome of irony? A keyboard called legato that... actually.. can't let you play legato! :lol:

 

What a weird but captivating piece. I never heard this one either but I think you play it very well - I don't suppose Satie meant for performers to "do"much with this beyond rendering the notes. I can imagine this being fairly hard to read. My only little nit would be that some of chords are just a touch uneven. Not in a disturbing way but hey, one must have something to nag about ! I found the
sound not at all bad for a digital, and did not hear any strange noises.