Music and Painting – a viewpoint

In looking at my music related pieces it may help if I indicate my thinking…..

I’d ask you to accept the basic premise that all the Arts share a store of common ‘ building blocks ‘ –  shape, colour, tone, line, texture etc and concepts such as composition, balance, contrast, rhythm, pattern etc. These are then moulded and formed into a piece of work – whether a symphony, novel, poem, play, dance, sculpture or painting.  The resultant artwork can be anywhere on the spectrum between representation and abstraction.

My approach to my music pieces is to use a musical form of thought … but in the context of visual ‘ building blocks ‘ …. creating and exploring themes and their change and development – to build a visual narrative with beginning, centres and conclusion. My hope is that by spending a little time absorbing a piece, more and more of its built-in connections and relationships will become apparent.

While being composed to be read left to right …..you will see I have shown some turned around…..upside down or sideways…or rather in ‘alternative orientations’.  This may strike you as pretty obtuse… but, being completely abstract there is no representation to be upset… so by turning pieces around different elements are allowed to become more dominant, others more secondary etc. – the visual weights shift markedly and, with this, the painting’s effect.

You may prefer a particular orientation over others… fine, as each and everyone brings their own views and responses to a work of art, no two are the same… and all valid.

I am aware that I am mining a rarified seam of visual art ( which can meet with a blank response!) – however, I have noticed a common feature in folk, of all backgrounds, when viewing these pieces –  they stop, look, and look again … working things out…

I can only hope they will absorb you too.

I am always fascinated to hear considered responses – my favourite to date being that of a composer friend of whom I asked, after some lengthy looking in silence, “Does it appeal on an intellectual basis…..or an emotional one aswell?? ” …he answered firmly,

” Oh, both… Both. ”