Eric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd. An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a gymnopedist, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. Later, he also referred to himself as a phonometrician preferring this designation to that of a musician, in a book on contemporary French composers published.