Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (Honfleur, 17 May 1866, Paris, 1 July 1925) was a French composer, pianist and writer.
He preferred spelling his name as Erik Satie, dating back to his first composition in 1884. He wrote articles for several periodicals; there appears to have been a brief period in the late 1880s during which he published articles under the pseudonym Virginie Lebeau, although in later life he prided himself on always publishing his work under his own name.
Satie introduced himself as a "gymnopedist" from 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. He also referred to himself as a "phonometrograph" or "phonometrician," meaning "someone who measures and writes down sounds" ? he preferred this definition of his profession to "musician," after having been called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book on contemporary French composers in 1911. Some view him as a serial precursor, being ahead of many 20th century avant-garde artistic ideas; see below.
