Introducing Plein Air

Painting En Plein Air (French: “In the open air”) has been an artistic practice for centuries, perhaps more famously employed by the Impressionists Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. As the name suggests, Plein Air painting involves painting a scene outdoors, observing the changing light and weather in real time while replicating the scene on the canvas.

In applying this tradition to music I have been heavily influenced by Pierre Schaeffer’s Music Concrete, John Cage’s writings on the universality of music in the world, and the art of field recording. Similar to its painting counterpart, Plein Air music involves my playing a song, usually by myself, in outdoor, wild spaces. The music I create with the instrument and voice blends with the preexisting music of the natural world; birdsongs, wind rustling through reeds, the crash of waves, the whizz of a passing bee; the symphony is endless. My intention is to become a part of the scene, and not the outstanding figure: a member of the music of the world that has been playing and will be playing long after I am gone.

For the inaugural episode of this new series I mounted a boulder on the coast of the Pacific to play “Ragged Wood” by Fleet Foxes. Revelry mingles with yearning throughout the lyrics, as the author celebrates the new spring life bursting forth while also wishing for the company of someone whom he has been without too long. My sister introduced me to this song when I was fourteen years old, and it has been a companion on a dozen or more adventures in the mountains and coastlines alike.

Join me over the course of the next year as I explore the interaction between the music of humanity and the music of nature En Plein Air.