Impressionism

 Impressionism is the theme for my music studio this year.  This musical period only lasted a few decades, 1870-1920.  A group of young artists abandoned the accepted school of realism in favor of a new movement in painting which was deemed revolutionary.  These impressionist artists maintained that for their purposes, realism played no part in achieving an artistic result.  The aim was to create the general "impression" of the moment made by the subject on the artist.  Monet, Manet, Renoir and Degas are among these Impressionist artists.

Since music is essentially an 'abstract' art form, it has also been ideal for projecting Impressionist images. The orchestra and the piano predominate the compositions because of the many 'musical colors' the instruments can produce.  Some of my favorite Impressionist composers are Debussy, Ravel and Faure. A few dominating musical features of Impressionist music are:  1. Modal influences help music escape from the major/minor box. 2. Whole-tone scales were used in the music of the Far East of which the composers were fascinated by.  3.  Pentatonic Scale  is played on all 5 black keys and/or the C,D,F,G,and A.  These 5 tones were popular in Chinese music as well as folk music of Britsh Isles. 4. In  Impressionist Harmony the chord became an entity in itself.  5.  Parallel motion became proper in moving the voices in comparison to the classical contrary motion. 6.  Lastly, the harmonies in Impressionist music gave the impression of having 'Escaped" to another tonality.  They are neither prepared for nor resolved in any traditional sense, they simply 'evaporate.'  The students and I are in for a delightful treat experiencing and learning the Impressionist way.

As I was sincerely praying for a family member recently, the Spirit gave me a lovely insight.  People are impressionist paintings.  When we look up super close it is easy to see the flaws, simpleness, and odd individual colors and we tend to worry about that.  When we stand back we can see the 'whole' person; meaning seeing others as children of our God.  All the colors working together, the good strokes and bad strokes just blend together and become a beautiful whole with the grand impression that God is in charge and only He can make us whole.