In this new monthly video series, Marc Yeats explores his relationship to composing, painting and landscape.

Music, Painting, Landscape and Me

Marc Yeats is a composer, landscape painter and artistic practice researcher. Together with explorations of temporality, perceptual obfuscation, serendipity, play, geology, layering, erosion, landscape and place-specific resonance, these art-forms, structures and approaches cross-fertilise and influence each other to find embodiment in his work. Understanding, researching and developing this self-referential relationship remains his life-long challenge and passion.

“Hello. My name is Marc Yeats. I'm a composer and painter. I’m just starting to write a book supported through Arts Council England's Developing Your Creative Practice grant titled ‘Music, Painting, Landscape and Me’ that explores my relationship to composing, painting and landscape and I'd like you to join me on this explorative journey. 

As part of my research, I invite you to think about, discuss and answer some of the questions I'm posing in the book. I'm interested to know your perspectives to help focus and challenge my own ideas and responses as I believe many of the questions I'm asking myself are universal to all artists. In this regard, I'd like to think that any exchange of ideas and positions may help all of us develop a clearer understanding of the deeper aspects of our practice. 

To move the conversation along and share my thoughts, I will be producing a series of monthly videos that will document my questions, thought processes and general ramblings as I share my journey with you. I hope these videos act as an invitation and provocation for you to think about your work and practice, too. At the end of the series of videos, it will be possible for us to exchange views (the format for this has yet to be decided). Your thoughts, verbal or written, will not be included in any part of the book and will remain completely private.

Writing from my perspective as a composer and painter, the book aims to demystify, disentangle and clarify my creative thought by asking: What compels me to do what I do? Why is my practice as it is? What elements of landscape, music and painting are transmitted across these media, if any? Why do certain landscapes affect me so deeply? And finally, what do I mean by a sense of place and how, if at all, is it embodied in my work? 

If you have ever asked yourself any questions similar to these, then please join me.

I may not be able to fully answer the questions I have posed for myself but hope that this inquiry, journey and the eventual book will provide some useful insight for all of us on a similarly questioning path. Without a doubt, this is the most daunting project I have ever undertaken and your company along the way will be greatly appreciated.”

https://marc-yeats.com (for music) https://www.marc-yeats.com/paintings/ (for paintings) Follow Marc on Souncloud and Twitter. 

Introduction

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In this introductory video, Marc introduces himself, his work and the book he will be writing titled ‘Music Painting, Landscape and Me’. Talking us through how his practice as a landscape painter working between realism and abstraction has developed and changed over time and how it sits alongside his practice as self-taught composer of polytemporal music, Marc invites you to consider how different art forms and media might intersect, interrelate and influence one another. 

Part 1 

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In this video, Marc poses some of the questions that he will explore when writing the book. He asks what it is about music, painting and his experience of the British landscape that resonates with him and how each are embodied both visually and musically through the work that he creates. 

Part 2 

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In this, the second video in the 'Music, Painting, Landscape and Me' series, Marc discusses the initial stages of writing his book, what questions he is asking himself about creative practice and the challenges he is facing, particularly around objectivity, self-observation and how best to communicate and frame subjective material in a meaningful and useful way.

Part 3 

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In part three of this series, Marc talks about his relationship to particular kinds of landscapes, especially the chalk scenery of the south of England and how his engagement with these landscapes has impacted his creative life as a composer, painter and researcher. He asks how other music creators feel about their relationship to place or landscapes and how this impacts their own work.

Part 4

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In this video, Marc discusses his thoughts around concepts such as style, spontaneity and serendipity and how such concepts impact the view he takes of his own work, its qualities and how the work is made.

Part 5

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In the fifth video of the series, Marc talks about the challenges of writing his autobiography as part of the book and how it is difficult to be objective about oneself and one's motivations and history when the very equipment used to write an autobiography – memory – is itself prone to inaccuracy and bias. He discusses concepts such as truth, honesty and accuracy, lenses and bias and how the reader themselves filters what is read to construct their own meanings and image of the subject.

Part 6

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In this latest update and following requests from a number of people, Marc takes time out from painting and composing to talk to you about how he believes his music compositions and paintings are connected, what the limits of that connection are, and how that connection is or is not transmitted to the viewer and listener and how we build meaning around what we experience.

Part 7

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In this video, Marc talks about how he establishes meaning in his work through the act of interpretation and how meaning and connection are established between music composition, painting and landscape as ongoing acts of interpretation within his practice.

Part 8

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Join Marc for a quick update on his progress and developing theories on the Music, Painting, Landscape and Me book.

Part 9

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In the ninth and final part to the Music, Painting, Landscape & Me series, Marc shares an exciting announcement about the book, and talks us through the topics it covers, the questions he endeavours to answer, and his forays into poetry.

Follow Marc's journey in this monthly video series throughout 2022/3 on the British Music Collection. 

On the British Music Collection we aim to showcase the breadth of music-making and compositional practice taking place in the UK today. To do this, we are committed to providing an online platform for digital projects and content created by our community of composers, supporting them to tell their stories and share their sounds with audiences.

If you have a project that you would like us to host on the British Music Collection online platform and that you think would be relevant to our community of composers and curious listeners, please let us know - thecollection@soundandmusic.org