one full cycle of vexations

on april 6th 2006, our music department at LMU performed a solo piano piece called "vexations" by erik satie.

The minute and a half of music in this video is the second movement, which is repeated 840 times, lasting between 16 and 36 hours. Players take shifts of about an hour to keep it going; at this point, we had been at it for about 17 hours.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• vexations
• satie
• minimalism
• modern
• music
• marathon
• lmu
• loyola

[ellendepellensnotteb]

I played Vexations with my school yesterday for about 24 hours .. we started at 16.30 exactly and quit at 16.30 exact !

[joeshines]

did you play 840 reps, or just go by time?

[richardpr986]

How many cycles did you complete? There's snippets posted on Ubuweb featuring cycles from different ensembles. One such group performs using different recorders; another musician realises Vexations on the harpsichord.

[joeshines]

we did all three movements, and all 840 repetitions of the 2nd "vexations" movement, and pretty meticulously kept track. it was all for piano except for an hour shift where a guitar took over, and then the infamous walking transfer to another piano. i got a video of that up too.

[Shizzlmadizzl]

what happens when one player makes a mistake? do they have to start over? :D

[kakofatus]

Actually it's 18 to 24 hours

[squiresuzuki]

My piano teacher said that he played this for a few hours and then started hallucinating.

[RustyRazor2010]

What was the audiences reaction? Positive?

[Nicolaspaulhorvath]

@regalstar yes i did allready 3 times non -stop ( means without a single 1 minute pause or whatever ) , and 5 more are planed this year ( i posted some videos on youtube )

[Nicolaspaulhorvath]

@regalstar yes i did allready 3 times , and 5 more are planed this year ( i posted some videos on youtube )

[cullyvan]

He'll be laughing uncontrollably in his grave knowing that so many people took him seriously.

[gerbelplec]

I'm pretty sure this piece is just Satie trolling everyone.

[JupiterIV]

@Shizzlmadizzl With this piece, I don't think there's such a thing as a mistake X(

[Elmore3141]

I've been playing this piece for approximately 7 years now, and I'm getting tired.

[regalstar]

So, has there been anyone who managed to play this song 840 times by themselves?

[demiserofd]

So creepy.