Seeing Chords as colours

Subject: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Stu
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 01:08 PM

During a recent band rehearsal I started a discussion about how I see chords as colours when I play. I don't actually see the colours in the physical world, but in my 'mind's eye' so to speak (I have a similar thing with days and months, and weeks and years are shaped.

Em is purple, D is brown , G is yellow, C is pillarbox red, Bm is blue etc.

Thus Kid on the Mountain goes purple-red-yellow-red etc.

Seems I am not alone with this according to the BBC website .

I am not sure this is what I have, but do any other catters experience this? I love it!

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: GUEST,PoppaGator
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 01:34 PM

I can't see colors in any context except the "normal" obvious way, but I have no doubt that other folks can.

Years ago, when I was a full-time street performer in the hippie meccas of San Francisco and New Orleans, people would occasionally approach me and tell me that they could see my "aura." This happened more than just two or three times ~ maybe about once every month or six weeks over a three year period.

I've never seen anyone's aura, but I know there must be something to it, because the folks who approached me about this always reported seeing mine as blue-green or aquamarine in color. Different people apparently have different-colored auras, but the reports of mine were always consistent, always indicated the same hue.

My conclusion is that there must be something to it. Even if these perceptions were drug-induced (or drug-enabled), the consistency of the feedback can only be explained by some objective basis.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: RichM
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 01:43 PM

Poppagator, your aura colors indicate that you are a well balanced and wise person.
And the fact that so many others have commented about your aura indicates you are giving good energy to those who watch you perform.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: GUEST,PG
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 02:08 PM

Thanks, RichM, that what I thought it meant.

;^)

I must admit, however ~ it's been a good thirty years or more since the last time I was told about my aura!

My busking career came to a sudden halt thanks to the Selective Service System, and by the time I had completed my hitch in the Army, I was married and had embarkled on a whole new life. (Without going into too much detail, they lifestyle I had enjoyed as a street musician was completely incompatible with the state of matrimony.)

I'll have to start getting out in public once again. Now that the kids are grown and out of the house, I'm thinking about becoming a born-again performer. I'll have to investigate some sane and stable indoor venues, though ~ I'm way too old for that street life these days!

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 02:21 PM

I have something like that with numbers but not colours. I see the numbers unfold as a pattern in my minds eye. Kinda like this

                                       
                                        30 30 31 32 33 34 36 37 38 etc
                                       29                      40
                                     28                      41
                                     27                      42
                                    26                      43
                                  25                      44
                                  24                      45
                                 23                      46
                               22                      47
                               21                      48
                                                       49
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20                      50
9                                                      51 etc etc
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

They don't always go in the direction you'd assume. I just see them this way and have every since I was a kid. I can draw the pattern out all the way up through the thousands. The pattern starts to repeat itself at times but not always. Anyone else.

I wonder if this post will show the pattern properly.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 02:46 PM

A slight segue here:

Poppagator, it's possible that your blue-green aura came about and was maintained by the process of immersing yourself in music. I understand that that everyone's aura changes -sometimes very rapidly - dependent upon mood, health, activity...

Given that, I would say that making music is and will continue to be essential to your wellbeing. So now you have a reason/excuse at hand: "I'm feeling down, hon. Need to bring myself up."

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: GUEST,PoppaG
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 03:52 PM

Ebbie, I have no doubt that the aura business is very much involved with making music. No one ever mentioned the subject to me except when I was performing ~ singing my heart out and playing with all the volume and intensity I could muster.

If it grows out of performance, I figure, it probably portrays the idealized self one is projecting ~ not necessary the real, flawed self of everyday life.

Now, I'm sure that a truly evil or stupid person would be incapable of generating a flattering aura; you probably have to be basically pretty OK to possess the wherewithal to project a nice positive emanation. But I would think that even the most spectacular aura is no more than a projection of one's best imagined self-image, not of the actual warts-and-all real-life person.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 07:14 PM

I just read a novel in which the protagonist has synaesthesia, which is (baring a spelling mistake or two) the technical term for getting the senses mixed up, or having concepts like days of the week manifest as sensory impressions. The guy loves going to church on account of the colours in the singing, but he dislikes long drives on unpaved roads because of the colour and shape of the sounds of the gravel hitting the underside of the truck. His favorite way to relax is to plug in the vacuum cleaner and feel the clear glass egg of the sound in his hand. The book is A Rhinestone Button by Gail Anderson-Dargatz. It is pretty good but not quite as good as her others, The Cure For Death By Lightning and A Recipe For Bees. Also, Margery Allingham wrote an Albert Campion mystery which hinged on the colours of the days of the week. I think it would be so cool to be able to distinguish chords by their colours.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: C-flat
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 07:27 PM

I find that certain words suggest colours to me but only in a vague sense. When I'm playing or listening to music I have a very distinct sense of "seeing" shapes and patterns that seem to make logical sense of the music and of where it's going.

It's something I'm not equipped to describe but feel I understand at a fundemental level.

C-flat.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: John Robinson (aka Cittern)
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 07:37 PM

There is a well known "condition" which connects senses - so some people associate words with taste - or sounds with colour.

The concertina player in Last Nights Fun has this - he sees keys in colours.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: John Robinson (aka Cittern)
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 07:37 PM

Sorry - I would have given the name for this "condition" but I've too mush alcohol to shay what it is

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: GUEST,Harmoni
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 07:55 PM

I've always seen letters, numbers, and days of the week as colours; I didn't know there was an actual name to this "conditon" though....you learn something new every day!

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 11:48 PM

Fascinating. Does the color intrude on the experience or enhance it? I imagine it is very different from having odors trigger memory?

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Barbara
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 12:16 AM

Synesthesia.
As Bob said above.
I've noticed it in my massage clients. Some of them can tell me what colors they see while I'm working on them. Most of them say purple or lavendar, and gold.
There was an interview on NPR or maybe the splendid table with a man who got sensory impressions of flavors. Sweet tended to be smooth and columnar, whereas sour or spicy was spikes. He could feel it in his fingertips, I believe.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 12:17 AM

I love the smell of yellow, but I can't listen to red for very long.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 01:35 AM

Aha! I definitely remember a past thread on this:
The taste of words

I don't have synesthesia, but a few weeks ago I had an adverse reaction to medication and saw the best colours and colour patterns imaginable, where all the things of the same colour in the room got brighter and were all so interconnected. Admittedly I was kinda hallucinating, but it was very cool indeed.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 02:33 AM

Em is purple, D is brown , G is yellow, C is pillarbox red, Bm is blue etc.

Thus Kid on the Mountain goes purple-red-yellow-red etc.


If you put a capo on the 2nd fret and play the chord shapes for Em-C-G-C, do you still get purple-red-yellow-red or do you get the colours associated with F#m-D-A-D ?


Doug C

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 02:53 AM

And what happens with the capo on the first fret ?

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 03:02 AM

And what happens if you have an out of tune guitar and start playing in the key of C# and a half ?

If you get one person to play C (red) while another is playing G (yellow), can you create orange ?

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Jeanie
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 03:05 AM

Me too - I have always associated colours with numbers, letters and also people. As a very young child, I also used to associate some people with different kinds of fruit or vegetable, and categorise them on first meeting: - for example there were "apricot people" , "banana people" and "cabbage people" (I always liked the first two kinds of people, but hated the latter !) Even with the fruit and veg, I think it was more a colour association than a taste one. The apricot people (sort of honey-coloured) were very kind and warm; the banana people were lively and fun; the cabbage people (a nasty dull dark green) were bossy and miserable. I suspect it was the auras that I was seeing.

Dave's Wife: Yes, like you, I see patterns for the way numbers, days, months and years travel across my mind's eye. They are never in a straight horizontal or vertical line - impossible to show by typing here - more angled or arcing from one corner of my vision to another, and three-dimensional, so that they are moving further away from me, the further away in time they are from the present. The days of a week and months of a year go from middle right downwards to bottom left. Completed whole years, and years to come, travel the opposite way, as do centuries, and the angle then is from bottom left to top right.

I really couldn't work out how many weeks or days there are to some future event without visualizing in this way. I wonder how people manage who don't see like this ?

All very interesting.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 03:14 AM

Now, I'm sure that a truly evil or stupid person would be incapable of generating a flattering aura; you probably have to be basically pretty OK to possess the wherewithal to project a nice positive emanation.


Adolf Hitler had enough charisma to convince a whole load of people that he was the best thing since sliced bread. (Did they have sliced bread back then?)


Doug C

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: mindblaster
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 04:21 AM

You're on acid - welcome to the world of the truly spaced out!

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: Stu
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 06:01 AM

Doug C:

For a start I got the chords wrong for Kid on the Mountain (purple-brown-yellow-brown).

When you move the capo up (on a bouzouki in my case), the colours change, mainly to yellowy-brown hues. What key is this? If it is A as I think it may be, then that makes sense - my music theory is a tad sparse.

Interestingly, I play Connaught Man's Rambles with and without a capo, and the Bm seems to change hues of blue. Lighter edging toward turquoise with the capo on the first fret, a deeper blue uncapo'd.

I can recognise some keys by their colours - D major is browny-red (but not uniform - the red is brighter in places, rather like a Rothko).

Ebbie asked if the color intrudes on the experience or enhances it - to me its an enhancement, adding to the experience of the music.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: GUEST,Wayne Monroe
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 07:48 AM

The late Dave Guard, formerly of The Kingston Trio, developed this theory in a book called COLOUR GUITAR but I'm not sure if the book was ever published.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: GUEST,megarmark
Date: 28 Mar 12 - 02:37 PM

a=red b=blue c=green d=green/brown e=yellow f=pink g=brown.

Subject: RE: Seeing Chords as colours
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 29 Mar 12 - 10:21 AM

I have a different synesthesia. If I'm playing piano and produce a really ugly mistake, my body reacts as if it had suddenly smelled a realy bad smell. The inner flinching is exactly the same.