Vincent Van Gogh & Music Theory

Another 'Van' in my posts. (Refer to previous)

I went to Science Park - Omni Theatre just now after my theory class to watch a 45 min documentary on Van Gogh. It was very interesting and insightful. The narration was first person, quite wierd though as he died long ago.

Vinvent Van Gogh is a 19th century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter. There is a Van Gogh Museum where most of his paintings are displayed. Most of the information of his life was from the surviving 600 letters that he wrote to his brother, Theo. Something that struck me was that he studied painting very 'acadamically'. This meant to me that he knows about precision and has the rock solid foundation to painting.

It related well to me as I am also an artist in the area of music and music is a type of art, just like paintings are an art form. So, therefore, I felt that to be called as a musician, one must be able to know music very acadamically, meaning that I must study the subject well. Many people who are able to strum a guitar call themselves a musician, but there is much depth to music that one can fathom. Clue: Study Music Theory and Analysis.

Another thing in the documentary that struck me was that he 'kept on painting'. I can't remember how many paintings he painted but something like for the last 2 months of his life, he painted 200 paintings, thats an average of 3 a day, working non stop to do something he loved. Its a pity that he only lived till 37 years old. Revelation to me is to "keep on doing".

I wanted to watch this documentary for quite a while already but procrastinated till today and the catalyst for me going to watch it just now was my theory class. Today we studied Belioz "Symphonie Fantastique", 1st movement and Debussy's orchestral work "La Mer", the 2nd movement. The realtion was "French Impressionist Music" vs "French Impressionist Art".

The idea for today's class was "Idee Fixe", also known as "Leitmotif" or "Metamorphosis of Themes". Today is a "French" day for me.

Learning Music and Art is such an amazing thing, it helps us appreciate life better.