Just like any other band these musical icons experience a lot of obstacles before they achieved there legendary status. Starting a band requires a lot of effort and requires a lot of luck. Luck, in a sense that choosing band members does not come easy as anyone would like to think. Even though the Beatles had paved the way for rock and roll music to be appreciated by English listeners, pop culture was still the dominant music that Britons mostly listens. For a starting band like Led Zeppelin they were facing insurmountable odds. Forming a band was hard enough they needed a lot of patience to perform countless gigs in order to get noticed by a music company.

Finally, the band was given their chance. In 1968 the band managed to get the attention of the music industry. There album was finally was set to be released. In 1969 when the album was released it was a hit. It was not surprising because their song offers so much influence. Their music was a blend of blues, pop, rock and many more. They captured the heart of not only Britons but also Americans as well. There concert tours was a sure hit that was why Atlantics Records investment did not go to waste. They had a signing of 200,000 dollars which was at that time the biggest ever made in history in the music industry. The record company did expect that the band would be popular but not to this extent. Concert auditoriums were always full and tickets were always sold out.

Getting and signing a record deal is the dream of every amatuer musician and band. It doesn’t matter if you are playing in your garage, have local gigs or just got together with a couple of friends to make a band page on MySpace. Even people that only sing in the shower dream of getting a record deal. record deals are such a desired item that it is the top prize for what is probably the most watched show in the world, American Idol. The American Idol winner gets a lot of screen time, gets to go on tour, but what they are all striving for is to get the recording deal with Simon’s record company.

You need to be talented to get record deal, but what is considered talent is up to the listeners. It’s kind of like “Beauty is in the Eye Of The Beholder”. If you are good enough that people want to pay to listen to your music you have some kind of talent. That is really all the record companies want, to make money. They will sign anyone that can sell enough CD’s to make a profit, even if the songs are just downloaded from iTunes. If you can make them money, the record companies will sign you. There will always be people that don’t like certain kinds of music. I personally don’t like country music, but you can believe that I would have loved to have been the agent that signed the recording contracts for Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and any of the other country music superstars. I don’t like rap music either, but I wish I owned a piece Def Jam Records.

The internet has brought with it lots of ways to get your music out into the world to be heard. One of MySpace’s biggest sections is for music and bands. All the popular bands, and even the unpopular bands, have their own profiles on MySpace. The profile pages contain information about the bands like: upcoming gigs, contact information, song samples for download. The profiles also normally contain video clips of the bands recent live performance or a couple of their music videos. The most important thing your band or personal profile has to contain is a link to your own website.

Having your own website on the internet is probably the most important thing to getting your name and music out into the world for the record company reps to hear. Having your own website gives you much more control over your information than just having a profile page on MySpace. Hopefully your band name will still be available to register. One of the biggest bands of all time, Journey, didn’t register their own name as a website and they have been around since the 70′s. They ended up with JourneyMusic dot com, and you may have to do the same thing.

The days of the recording company’s A&R reps touring the country looking for the next big band are basically over. They still exist, but you need to give them a reason to come see you play. Now they search the internet looking for talent to sign to a recording deal, and that is the reason you need to get your name and music on the internet.

Music is a business. You have to decide how seriously you want to pursue your personal enjoyment versus making money. This is not to say that you can’t have both and sometimes if you plan carefully you can have a rewarding experience in every way.

Many of you have played music on different levels and it’s good to talk to other musicians to get ideas and learn from their experience. Some musicians are happy to rehearse together only, some are happy to do cover songs and others write and play original content and go for the big time. No matter what you decide, the planning of your endeavor is a most often ignored and important part of your success.

DEALING WITH CHANGE AND KEYS TO SUCCESS

I think it might be a tie between the number of bands I’ve been with and the number of cars I’ve owned, especially when I was younger. Playing music can be very frustrating. There may be times in your life when you will participate more and sometimes less. Keep at it! Music keeps you young and alive.

Change is all about being adaptable. Music styles, Band Members, Gigs, and most of all – you change. Keep you eye on the prize – playing as often and for as long as you can.

Don’t get locked into the same old music. Some songs are treasures and you will want to play them forever. Put some new stuff in there every once in a while to challenge yourself and keep things fresh. There is nothing more frustrating to hear a good band, and years later they are doing 80% of the same old stuff. If you have old hit songs that may be the exception. Don’t be afraid to do original music. Economic times are tough. People want to enjoy themselves when spending their money listening to music. Give them your all.

Circumstances cause changes in band membership. The band will usually be different when a member is replaced. In one band we lost our keyboard player and went on without one. We wound up with a tighter sound, more gigs, and more money. Pick average musicians you can get along with rather than superstars who want to run the entire show. After auditioning replacements, talk about what you have to change. You new guitar player might not be the soloist your old one was but maybe he can sing better and open up more avenues of songs for you to do. If you get a chance, read “Who Moved My Cheese” by Spencer Johnson, MD.

Music is all about entertainment. I am not suggesting you get a monkey and organ grinder. Act like you have an interest in what’s going on. Have confidence. You’re probably much better than you think. If your band makes mistakes on stage (I call them clams), don’t turn around and look at the guy on stage like he just wet his pants. If your whole band screws up a song, keep going or restart and make a joke of it to the audience.

“Dead Air” is your biggest enemy. Don’t let time go by without communicating to the audience. I played in “show” bands where your every move and words were rehearsed. I think I would have rather worked at the steel plant. A natural, honest, and upbeat presentation will keep your audiences attention until the next tune.

Communicate with each other on stage. Hand signals or a few words can serve as a reminder for stops, endings, dynamics, and a variety of things. Speaking of dynamics (getting louder or softer is a general definition of dynamics), they can make or break you. Music with a constant loud or soft approach has little feeling. Build your songs and make great dynamic endings. If you are doing covers, don’t be afraid to change things. Make each song your own.

Right now I have been in a great band for over two years. We enjoy rehearsal, gigs, and have tons of fun with oldies, blues, and a little country. I hope whatever your musical experience is, that you make it fun too.

Around the pubs and clubs in the UK there are still many bands playing for only a few pounds to demanding audiences who simultaneously request Chuck Berry and the Arctic Monkeys. Keeping all these different people in the audience happy is never easy, but not impossible either. With good stage craft and clever of songs at a particular venue, a good band can make everyone happy.

The organisation of these bands is extraordinary. They must find like minded musicians that are committed. Then they must find somewhere to practice. This is not easy as most cannot do this at home. If you are fortunate to have a house big enough, it is unlikely you can get round the neighbours, as it is so loud! It cannot be turned down as everything must be as loud as the drums. A band usually hires a room to practice, at great cost to themselves.

A band must also spend literally thousands on equipment. PA, lighting, guitars, drums etc.

The next hurdle is transport. For some reason most drummers cannot drive! Cars are usually inadequate as you would need a fleet of about 5 for your gig, very expensive on the fuel, and impractical. Most bands have to hire or buy a van, again at great cost to themselves.
When they have finally rehearsed all there material over weeks or months, they are ready to play live. It is an exciting day, one of wonder, excitement and slight fear. You turn up to the venue to find one man and his dog. And that man is very drunk, wants to be your manager, and giving you all the benefit of his ‘wisdom’ in the music game! The landlord is also drunk, and you cannot work out if he likes you or not.

You get poorly paid, if you get paid at all, and return home usually out of pocket.

However the real rock heroes come back for more. They find the best venues, gain a reputation, and play at some great places. Sure they still have bad gigs, but the good ones make up for it. They make it look so easy, but it is not. One such band can be seen at [http://www.thehalfmonty.tk]

The Half Monty have had there share of ups and downs. They have been ripped of at gigs, played in the most dodgy venues, and heckled to death. But they are still here, bigger and better than ever having learnt from their early days.

So remember, when you see a local band advertised at a pub or club, go see them and support them. It is not easy for the lads and lasses. Perhaps buy them a beer after the performance if you really enjoyed it. , for these are the true heroes of rock.

In days gone by the guitar was a quiet, well behaved little instrument. In the nineteen thirties in America, you could barely here it in swing bands trying not to be drowned out by drums and horns. Sadly, it was fighting a losing battle. The guitar in acoustic form simply lacked the design dynamics to make it an instrument that was loud enough to be prominent in a full band situation.

All this was to change in Los Angeles, where it is said that George Beauchamp invented the first crude electric guitar. Hawaiian music, which he performed, is credited as the inspiration for the electric guitar. This is due to the fact that in Hawaiian music, the guitar is primarily responsible for melody. The sound of this humble instrument needed to be amplified.

The first electric guitar, as with most groundbreaking innovations, was met with some criticism. It quickly became apparent however that a new domain was created that allowed for guitarists to express their own unique abilities and style. The selling point of those early, crude guitars was simple… volume. Guitarist were now empowered to choose creative melodic lines as opposed to only strumming rhythm. Suddenly music was heard that showcased a new featured voice. The guitar was no longer satisfied with its obscure place in the band.

The design of the guitar was forced to evolve over time. The hollow sound chamber was prone to feedback. With the invention of guitar pickups, the next natural step in the electric guitars evolutionary process was the creation of the solid body electric. The progression was swift. The first mass produced solid body electric (the Telecaster) was birthed in 1950, courtesy of Leo Fender. It was called the broadcaster at first, but the company was forced to change the name because it was already in use by another. The popular Les Paul appeared in 1952 due to a collaboration between the Gibson company and guitarist, Les Paul. In 1954, Fender introduced the legendary Stratocaster, and the rest as they say…was history. These instruments started finding their way into the hands skillful artists who would amaze the world with their technical proficiency. The age of the guitar hero and the mind-blowing guitar solo had dawned.

The emergence of players like Chuck Berry, Jimmy Page, Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Van Halen would revolutionise the world of music forever. These and other iconic guitarists would inspire generations of young musicians who would change the face of popular music as they themselves had done. With electric guitars being affordable and easily accessible, most every boy (or girl) could mimic the techniques of their idols and propel this musical revolution into the future. The electric guitar had burst onto the scene, and it was clear that it would not be leaving any time soon.

Here are several questions for you to ponder:

* How much would it be worth to you to learn how to promote
your CD at gigs you never even play, but create a large number
of sales from these gigs just the same?

* While these particular gigs are promoting your CD, at the
same time, what if you could play a completely different gig and get paid for it while also selling CDs at it and, in fact, possibly *doubling* and *tripling* your CD sales profits *each* night?

* Even better, what if you could not only do this in your own
local area, but also do it regionally, nationally, and even
internationally?

What I’m speaking of, is major cross promotion and incredible
joint venture partnering with other bands that you know that
are equally as serious about and strongly committed to their
careers.

Naturally, you should do some background research on each
prospective band prior to getting into such a venture with it.
You should also sign an agreement to ensure that each band
is aware of its commitment and responsibilities.

So, with each successful qualifying band that “passes,” in
terms of a background research, approach the band with a
cross promotion and joint venture offer to promote each
other’s CD at each other’s gigs. Here are some guidelines:

1. Make sure the band is within your genre, and has a similar
music-styled CD that is current (no more than a year old).

2. Each band in the network needs to create a CD of song
samples or snippets (brief samples of each song from its
full-length CD, much like the 2-minute samples on such sites as
CD Baby, Amazon.com, etc.).

3. While each band will sell its own full CD at its gigs, each
band will also hand out CD samples from its partner bands as
freebies to each person who buys the performing band’s
full-length CD.

4. During gigs, in addition to announcing that its own CD is
available for sale to the audience, each band should also inform its respective audience that each person who purchases its CD also gets a FREE bonus sample from (three, five, whatever number in your network) of its fellow bands.

There is nothing like free giveaways to produce bonafide sales
on the spot, so to speak, and this will actually “force” and
increase sales at gigs that may otherwise have not occurred.
And, the more band sample giveaways you have, the better
chances for even more sales and, possibly, complete sell-outs
of your nightly stock.

Note: Don’t make the mistake of giving away your fellow bands’
samples to people who don’t purchase your own CD.

5. Each band should also have a website that is listed on each
CD sample’s label, cover and as a file on the disc itself so that audience members who purchase the gigging band’s CD can
also have immediate access to the fellow bands’ websites for
getting more information and the opportunity to also purchase
their full-length CD as well.

6. In addition to creating peripheral sales for all bands in the network, this promotional system will also greatly help build each band’s audience and sales without the need to actually perform for these particular sales.

7. Likewise, each band is eliminating the need to spend
additional time and money promoting and publicizing its CD for
these particular future sales.

Now, again, imagine doing this with the bands that you know
just in your local area. Then, consider the potentially incredible results in exposure and financially that can occur should you decide to branch out regionally, nationally or internationally.

It isn’t enough to have a MySpace and expect fans to find you. And, it isn’t enough to print flyers and post them at Guitar Center and the club you’re playing in. Yes, you have to do all of these things but even these three together aren’t enough any more.

Add these 7 tactics to promote your band online and watch your odds of success soar.

Create a website. Yes, this is in addition to MySpace. My favorite band website builder is Bandzoogle. It’s simple to use. You don’t need to know anything about building a website to use it. You can post information, photos and even music. You can sell your music or give it away. You can create and house a database of fan emails and send emails out. And best of all, you can try it for FREE!

Craigslist. As mundane and monotonous as it is to post to Craigslist, you must do this every week. Yep, every single week. Learn to write creative headlines and drive fans to your website.

Ideas for headlines:
“Music Download At No Cost This Week Only” (You do have music available on your Bandzoogle website, don’t you?)

“If You Like (Name An Artist You Sound Like) You’ll Love This Band.”

“Just Get Dumped? This Song’s For You.”

“Not Suitable for ________” Fill in the blank with your exact target market. Then in your ad put something like “unless you’re really cool.” People can’t resist knowing why they are excluded from something.

Zvents/City Pages/etc. Be sure you list your upcoming gigs on EVERY FREE EVENT site you can find. Zvents is one we use all the time. But there are many more. Not sure where to look? Try googling “live music” + your city and see what sites come up. Find those that list your genre of music and begin submitting your gigs to every one of those sites. It takes a bit of time to find them all and set up accounts but once you have, it doesn’t take so long to update them for future gigs. Just be sure to keep a list of all the sites, your login and password information.

Internet Radio Many internet streaming radio stations accept submissions from unknown artists. Black Velvet Deluxe worked with Maximum Threshold when we first got started. Great guys to work with. We had our guitarist record “This is Nate Beck with Black Velvet Deluxe and you’re listening to Maximum Threshold” on a usb drive and we mailed it to Maximum Threshold to use. That got the band even more exposure than simply playing the band’s tunes.

It’s also important to build relationships with the internet radio stations. Befriend them on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Promote them on your social media as well. “Shout out to Maximum Threshold for playing our tunes” type of thing on Twitter will go far.

Jango If you have a little money to invest, I highly recommend Jango. From a listener perspective Jango enables you to select the bands you like and stream their music for free. From an artists perspective you pay Jango to play your tunes. You tell Jango the bands you sound similar to and they serve up your music to fans of the better known bands. Those fans, when they hear your music, can reject it or become a fan. If they become a fan, your music is played for them in their rotation.

You can target fans by age, sex, geography. You can post information for your Jango fans. Your fans can email you via Jango and you can reply. Fans can elect to share their email address with you to get ongoing information from you.

It’s a great way to start to build an online fan base.

YouTube Yes, post videos of you playing on YouTube, but you can do so much more. Have a friend conduct an interview with the entire band. Watch a TV interview of a band. Jot down the questions that the interviewer asks and have a friend ask you and your band mate those same questions on camera. Post it to YouTube. Take a video of you and your band at rehearsal, creating new music. Post it to YouTube. Take video backstage before or after a concert and share that with your fans on YouTube.

Become Friends With Your Fans Seriously. Build relationships with the fans you develop online. Email them. Ask them for help. We had one fan who emailed a local music festival, telling them he and his friends had been to their festival three years in a row and they’d really like to see our band, Black Velvet Deluxe, play at the festival. We had another fan who went to a taping of a Eddie’s Trunk and took our CD and personally gave it to Eddie.

A band needs three things to be successful; talent, marketing and luck. Unfortunately most bands only rely on the first one – their talent- and wonder why they never “made it.” But you have control of two of the three elements of success. Do you want a 33% chance of success or a 66% chance of success? Use these marketing tactics to promote a band and double your odds of achieving success.

I thought about writing this post on band promotion because I often hear new bands and struggling musicians wishing they got more paying gigs. Getting a paying gig is good, I mean… you spend a lot of time, energy and even money on getting your act together.. rehearsing, traveling to rehearsals and gigs (gas can be a pain if you travel by car), buying your gear, etc. But getting paid gigs for new acts can be very difficult.

While I believe it is great to get paid, I don’t mean to say you should think of a band as a business. What I am saying is, it would be practical to at least have your costs covered.

Of course, that would depend on you and your reasons why you are in a band in the first place.

Some bands want to play; love to play; feel that playing and getting their music out there is the best compensation there is.. and the return of their investment in effort, time and money is that opportunity to get up there and PLAY. There are also others who work towards a long term goal like building their own following and getting their music across to them.

The reasons why you do it, pretty much sums it up.

But, if you wanted to get paying gigs, here are a few things you can do.

1. Work on Your Product

Once in a while I come across a client who struggles with promoting their product or service, and put in a lot of effort only to get minimal results. The main reason is, they have not been able to accurately develop, define and refine their product, which is why aggressively promoting something mediocre will always yield mediocre results.

So what is your product? The band, and your music. The key question is how do you set yourself apart from the rest. What is it you do that is unique, or what is it that you can do better than everybody else?

“What do you want people to remember and LIKE you for?”

2. Define Your Music/Repertoire

Repertoire defines what type of band you are. It also defines who your audience is. I believe writing and recording original material is great because by having your own music you create an asset that others do not have. It is that that final sum of a collaborative creative effort that brands your band. BUT, does not guarantee success, since for your band to be successfully recognized for your music, you would first need to attract an audience that gets to hear and appreciate it.

On the same note, being a cover band does not mean you cannot get paying gigs. There are a lot of cover bands that get paid well for small bar gigs or even major events.

What it comes down to is the novelty of the band, and your draw. Novelty is that something about you that people will want to come see; and your draw is the size of the crowd you can gather at your gigs.

3. Market Yourself

You would need to sell yourself to people who you believe would appreciate your band and what you have to offer. There are basically two types of people you want to market to; there are the people who you want coming to your gigs and appreciating your music, and the people who are in a position to hire you for gigs.

This can actually be the classic “the chicken or the egg scenario”, where you actually grow your audience and get more exposure by being playing more gigs, but to get more gigs you got to get invited or hired by people who have a hand in making gigs happen.

But it need not be complicated. You just have to do both at the same time.

Networking is key. The more people you get to meet, the more contacts you establish, the closer you get to your goal.

Ways to Network.

a. Use the Internet, put up a website that tells people about you and your music. Use social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace to build a network. Use media sites like YouTube, MetaCafe and DailyMotion to spread your music and build a list of followers/subscribers.

Always mention these sites during gigs; when you talk to other people about your gigs, during shows, and include them on printed materials such as stage back drops, fliers, calling cards, etc.

Make people WANT to go to your site by offering them some sort of benefit they get by going, for instance.. you can tell them that they can listen to a live-stream of your music on your site, download your music from your site (if you allow), or tell them you give away free merchandise like shirts on occasion and mechanics on how to get free stuff are on your website.

b. Print business cards, or calling cards. That way you are able to hand people you meet something that they can refer to when they need to contact you or if they refer you to other people who might need you for gigs. A business card says a lot of things about you, it pretty much says, you mean business, you got it together, and your can be relied upon to deliver if contacted for a gig. It creates a good impression about your band.

c. Do quick sets at small parties that you are already there to attend in the first place. Parties or gatherings are a great way to build up a following. This grassroots approach can lead to viral promotion. Never underestimate the power of word of mouth. If you know that a friend is putting together a party, offer to do a few songs. Let’s face it, being in a band is cool, that may be one of the top reasons you even started one.. so don’t wait for an opportunity to play fall right on your lap, you create your opportunities.

d. If you are not that established, volunteer to front for other bands who are friends of yours AND are established. Established bands typically have a huge following, grab the chance to get yourself in front of that audience, their audience. You might not get paid for this, but it is an investment that will yield long term benefits. Through this opportunity, you show people what you can do, tell people about your website or where you are online, you can hand out business cards and talk with people in the audience or show promoters.

e. Find radio stations that play material from unsigned bands. Getting your music played on a radio station is one of the most difficult things to get done. You will be turned down by a few, but you cannot let that setback stop you from being persistent and trying them again later or trying to find other stations that will play your music. If you are in college, get your music on your campus radio station, if your university has one. That said, I personally found it a lot easier to market your band and network when in college, it was so easy because in college you meet a lot of new people all the time, and get invited to a lot of parties and events.

If your music does get airplay and attention, your band WILL get attention.

4. Management / Representation

You have to have a manager. An authority figure who you trust and count on to work for nothing less than the success and well being of the band.

A manager should be a tenacious businessman. He is a negotiator, understands marketing, and most importantly he believes in the product he is entrusted with. His main goal is to sustain and develop further the product he manages.

Having a manager can have many advantages, and one of the things I see managers being able to do that bands that manage themselves cannot, is be objective. The manager sees something that individual members in a band do not see, this is especially true when some members of the band develop egos that cloud their judgment. Members have a tendency to get tunnel vision and might not respond well to other people’s opinions that may not be flattering, a manager knows if criticisms are valid and take these not emotionally but objectively.

A manager is both a member of the group and outsider; a member because he works with the group to achieve their goals. He is an outsider who can make rational decisions and even be critical of the group if it fails to deliver what their audience expects.

Musicians can sometimes be the most stubborn of people, and the least receptive to criticism, and a trusted opinion from an authority figure can help the band work to better the product. Remember that the manager is above all a businessman, and he runs the band because it is “profitable”… the easier to market a band, the more money it makes, the more money the manager makes as well.

Managers should also be very aggressive and persistent, a friend of mine (a manager for a huge act) once told me a story about how she approached bar after bar only to get denied each and every time and was given all sorts of reasons and excuses. She never gave up, and did not give up on her band… today that band is a major recording artist… and actually they have been big for some time now.

So, if you are a new band that needs to promote yourself and get more gigs, and hopefully paying gigs…

- you have to be a band that can draw an audience

- you have the ability to make people who catch your gigs, like you or your music enough to want to be in touch with you so they know where to go for your next gig

- you have to build your reputation and brand yourself and your music

- you have be aggressive and get gigs and not simply wait for them, and if you are able to successfully do this and your band becomes successful, the offers will actually start coming to you

- you have to have someone.. a manager, who takes care of business and does this well, so that you are left to do what you do best which is put on a good show or create music that your audience appreciates.. as a performer it might be best to not worry about anything and let the manager do that worrying.. all you need to think about or focus on is having a good show or having a good time on stage.

Like everything made under the sun, your guitar is subject to wear and tear. There are many things that you need to take into consideration along with your guitar practice and one of such is your guitar maintenance.

There are special parts in the guitar and they all require special maintenance or else, you’ll not get the most from your guitar. I will examine a few things along the lines of guitar maintenance.

As part of a good maintenance, you must store your guitar well. A lot of young guitarists seem to take this very lightly. For example, they keep their guitars in such places where they are very likely to slide off on fall.

If your guitar has fallen once, unless it is in a flight case, it is not the same guitar you bought again. I know this may seem like laying it on too thick. But believe me, this is so because anything that cause the neck of your guitar to take such impacts compromises its performance.

For no reason should you keep you guitar anywhere that it’s slightly likely to fall. If you don’t have very good stands, wear it with your strap or put it back in the flight case. I know you may argue that those rock stars don’t do all that with their guitars. And my response is “Those stars only need to ask and several top guitar makers will make them a few guitars to their minutest specifications.”

Apart from storing your guitar well, it is a good practice to always clean your guitar after every use. Pay very close attention to the fret board and the strings. You know that sweat from your hands can easily corrode most strings.

Take time to oil your guitar’s tuning machine. This is especially true if your guitar uses the open tuning machine. Anything made of metal that has moving parts does better with oiling. Just make sure you drop only a little once in a while. This is not one of those tasks you should undertake on a daily basis.

These are just a few guitar maintenance tips. However, if you use them judiciously, your guitar will serve you for years and years on end.

The ‘trois Gnossiennes’ (1890) is a set of dance-like pieces of similar character, like the earlier composed ‘trois Sarabandes’ (1887) and ‘trois Gymnopédies’ (1888). The ‘trois Gnossiennes’ were first published by Satie as a set through Rouart, Lerolle & Cie. in 1913.

The Gnossiennes continue in the minimalist style of the Gymnopédies but add ornaments that give the pieces a destinctly oriental feel. Although the pieces are obviously composed in a 4/4 time signature, Satie did not indicate it in the score. He also omitted barlines, leaving one big “bar” for the entire piece. This gives the impression of great freedom for the pianist. The comments written above the score, like ‘Du bout de la pensée’ (from the tip of the thought) and ‘Postulez en vous même’ (wonder about yourself) also give much room for interpretation. This has proven to be true since there are few pieces in piano literature that have been interpretated in such diverse ways as the Gnossiennes.

The name ‘Gnossiennes’ can be explained in multiple ways. The ancient Greek word for ‘knowledge’ is ‘gnosis’. Gnosticism was the name of a religious-philosophical belief which has its origins in Greek philosophy as well as early Christian and Jewish Apocalyptic thoughts. In this belief ‘Gnosis’ stands for ‘True knowledge’, which is supposed to lead man to true emancipation. Gnosticism also played a great role in the beliefs of Joséphin Péladan’s (1859-1918) ‘Rose et croix’ sect. Satie’s collaboration with Péladan led him to take an interest in partly-heretical views. It is possible that the title of these works is an hommage to gnosticism.

The most common explanation however is that the title refers to the ritual dances performed by the inhabitants of the island of Crete, with its capitol city Knossos, famous in Greek mythology for the story of its labyrinth, Theseus and the minotaur. In 1890 Crete was in the news because of archeological excavations. Other works by Satie from the same period were named after dances as well. Namely the ‘Sarabande’, a dance which was first introduced in Portugal in 1586 and the ‘Gymnopédie’ which has its origins in ancient Sparta. Even so, it is very unlikely that Satie, a member of the ‘Rose et croix’ from 1891 to 1892, was unaware of the gnosticism relation when the second Gnossienne was first publicly performed in 1893.

In 1967 french composer Robert Caby (1905-1992) revealed many of Satie’s posthumous and often untitled works, taken from sketchbooks and manuscripts. He named three of these pieces Gnossienne. These became Gnossienne 4, 5 and 6 respectively. The piece known as the fourth Gnossienne was composed in 1891, the fifth in 1889 and the sixth in 1897. These pieces were first published in 1968 by ed. Salabert.