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http://www.box.net/public/qj6f5nygqr

Mike White

Not familiar with the music, but sounded great to me!

Wonderful job, Mike! I've been working on the same piece, but I'm not quite at the Red Dot stage yet. It's interesting to see the differences in interpretation... I really love to hammer those low bass notes, but you're much more understated with them. (I suspect your rendition is technically more accurate, though, because I haven't sat down to translate Satie's notes yet.)

...man, now all I wanna do is go home and practice.

Lovely job, Mike! This is one of my favorite of Satie's pieces. Very well played- perhaps a bit more emphasis on the dynamic changes? My recording (and that is, of course, only one interpretation) really builds to loud, and then drops back again gradually. Tho I really like the way you played it here.

Thanks, Rocky, Monica, and Mak. I followed along with Jean-Yves Thibodet to make the recording. I was playing it way too fast and by playing along with him, I think that I was able to better control my speed.

Mike White

Beautifully played Mike. Lovely composition. My only suggestion, is that your moving from soft to loud seems a but abrupt. Perhaps, it needs to be built up more gradually. At least that is the way I have heard it played. Other than that, you keep it moving at a nice even pace, and have captured that almost hypnotic effect of the compositiion. Gaby Tu

my teacher always tells me to visualize what I am playing

what "gnosienne" means?
a clever girl, a girl who thinks a lot, a thinking girl
and this piece is a musical description of a woman who is walking thinking and not taking care of the world around her - the head in the clouds, we say.
try to immagine her with her finger pointing towards her head (the ornaments)

thus: the ornaments should be less sharp, maybe a little bit slowlier, but even
pay attention to heavy notes (stressed beats) and the light ones - very important here
and play it all more piano
keep tempo

Satie is absolutely not so easy as it seems on the first glance - this is a difficult piece