Enfantillages pittoresques: March of the Grand Staircase

Erik Satie · Level 1 (Novice) · Impressionist · Piano

A little march going up and down a staircase “of more than a thousand steps, all of ivory”, with detached, accented chords as a refrain. From Satie’s Enfantillages pittoresques (1913, Demets 1914), three little pieces for children, written almost entirely in five-finger positions and dotted with small humorous texts that are not meant to be read aloud. A minor, 2/4, 80 bars (about 3 minutes), complete score.

▶ Play this piece with the interactive score

How to practise it

• Listen first: the site plays it while the score scrolls.
• Wait mode: the score waits for you at every note, at your own pace.
• Tempo challenge: play in time, with a score and a map of the bars you got right.
• Keep the left-hand eighths very even, like footsteps; play the staccato chords crisply and accent the third one. Start hands separately in Wait mode, then put hands together at a slow tempo before speeding up gradually.

More pieces by Erik Satie

• Celle qui parle trop – The Woman Who Talks Too Much (Chapitres tournés en tous sens, No. 1)
• Le porteur de grosses pierres – The Carrier of Large Stones (Chapitres tournés en tous sens, No. 2)
• Regrets des enfermés – Regrets of the Prisoners (Chapitres tournés en tous sens, No. 3)
• Sa Taille (Three Distinguished Waltzes of a Jaded Dandy)
• Danse maigre (Croquis et agaceries)
• Tyrolienne turque
• Españaña (Croquis et agaceries)
• Ses Jambes (Three Distinguished Waltzes of a Jaded Dandy)

Source : Mutopia Project · CC BY-SA 4.0