Erik Satie was a French com­poser and pianist. He referred to him­self as a “phono­me­tri­cian” (mean­ing “some­one who mea­sures sounds”) pre­fer­ring this des­ig­na­tion to that of “musi­cian”. In a book of con­tem­po­rary French com­posers pub­lished in 1911 he was named “a clumsy but sub­tle tech­ni­cian”.
Satie also left a remark­able set of writ­ings, hav­ing con­tributed work for a range of pub­li­ca­tions. He was a col­or­ful fig­ure in the early 20th cen­tury avant-garde. His work was a pre­cur­sor to later artis­tic move­ments such as min­i­mal­ism, repet­i­tive music, and the The­atre of the Absurd.