The New Empirical (840hz), 2013
Modified grand piano (Irmler, Leipzig 1893), custom-made tuning fork
The grand piano is manipulated to perform just one tone: A-flat (840 Hz), the single note that was left out of the main theme in the original composition by Satie. This seemingly simple intervention has required the piano to be completely rebuilt and restrung with custom-made strings. Now each of the piano keys is tuned to the A-flat.
Vexations 2, 2013 (background)
Graphite pencil on paper
840 sheets of custom-made music paper
Following Satie's instruction to perform 840 repetitions of the one page-long musical piece, Meyers composed his own version of the piece and, instead of playing it, wrote it down 840 times. The hand-written copies of the new music score are transcribed from memory, thus each page may contain unexpected changes.
Photo © Andrea Rossetti