Do you see musical notes as colors?

Subject: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 08 May 06 - 07:10 PM

I've recently come across separate descriptions of two famous folk/rock musicians who saw the musical scale as colors, and composed songs according to the visual effects in their minds. Yes, both took drugs. But they weren't always stoned when they had these experiences. So I'm wondering: are there any musicians here who perceive their compositions visually? If so, how you see music?

There was a thread about music and colors last year, but it focused on the works of a visual artist (Kandinsky) and some music/color theory more than on personal experiences.

music and colors

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: cyder_drinker
Date: 08 May 06 - 07:27 PM

I see the tune as a road going off into the distance, and the notes are hills, going up or down.
It works for me.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Kaleea
Date: 08 May 06 - 08:59 PM

When in Music school, a pal who happened to be blind told me told me that he sees notes as colors. He remembered colors from before he was blinded. He had always seen each specific note as a certain color. He is not the only blind person who told me this. Interestingly, the blind persons who told me about this had quite similar concepts of which color specific notes appeared to be.
There has been much theorizing about Music & color for a few thousand years, & it is always fascinating to me.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 May 06 - 09:06 PM

yeh, out of tune guitar strings are beige.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 08 May 06 - 09:17 PM

This thread contains a discussion of this phenomenon, which is known as synaesthesia. Check out Wikipedia and Google on the subject.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 May 06 - 12:29 AM

No - but I do interpret flavours as notes on a musical scale. Thus a dish is like a musical composition (with every note played at once - sort of like a humongous resonating chord, really!) with harmonising (or clashing, for a bad one) patterns of flavours.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Al
Date: 09 May 06 - 12:32 AM

No, I do not see notes as colors. But then, I have a very hard time visualizing in color at all, and my dreams are not in color. I find this kind of stuff fascinating. Thanks for starting the thread.
Al

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 09 May 06 - 01:22 AM

Bob the Postman, thanks for the link to the thread, and also for the term, synaesthesia. I will scope it out.

I was reading today that Jimi Hendrix believed that notes had colors. (He certainly anthropomorphized colors in the lyrics of "Axis: Bold as Love.") Laura Nyro would instruct her back-up musicians to play music in certain colors. There was one other singer-songwriter I heard of recently who clearly visualized a palette for the entire scale.

Anybody around these parts visualize their music in such a way?

Elmer

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: freda underhill
Date: 09 May 06 - 02:46 AM

mississippitom wrote this in the first post of that first thread you quoted, elmer f:

I learned how to play the Bluesharp almost overnight by experimenting trying to make those sounds.I kept trying to get my guitar to sound like something I had heard a long time ago by a man called Gabor Szabo and one day I found that sound. On that day I started to see in my mind a rainbow of colors associated with the music and realized that it also had a texture.The sound I was striving for has bright colors like Red and Purple and bright orange and Yellow and it's texture is Syrupy.Since then I have figured out all kinds of stuff on the guitar.It amazes me to this day how the sound itself makes so much difference.I tried and tried to get my guitar to sound like this Black Guy I recorded by the name of Terry Harmonica Bean and never could get it.One day someone explained to me that Blues has more Mids to it than most music and again a revelation of learning has occured and is still occuring.I plan to try to put this kind of stuff in a format and in a way that will help people to learn much faster. Sorry this is so long but believe it or not I skipped a lot.Thanks for reading this if you have and thanks for your comments if you do. mississippitom

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Pauline L
Date: 09 May 06 - 02:59 AM

I recently read about this here and here, and I learned a lot. Jimi Hendrix was said to have synaesthesia.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: freda underhill
Date: 09 May 06 - 03:22 AM

at the risk of more thread creep into theory - this diagram by Roy de Maistre, an Australian painter of the mid 20th century - shows his correlation of a colour for each note of the scale:

colour music scale

as well, in some cultures (indian - hindu, for example) each note was attributed to a god or goddess, which gave it a corresponding colour, emotional quality, a planet, climate, day, hour; and every tone had a specific animal quality. all this was defined so that Hindu music has layers of understood meaning beyond the sound, it plays in colour, philosophy and myth.

I learnt some elementary aspects of Hindu sound and colour through meditation (on sounds and colours) and simple Bangali songs.

freda

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 09 May 06 - 03:33 AM

Say a prayer to St. Synaesthesia. Or paint one perhaps.

Has any person blessed (or cursed?) with this condition/ ability ever painted a piece of music, or analysed old paintings in terms of the music of the time? Is the colour mapping consistent from one synaesthesic to another? What happens with chords, or drums? And do people get other crossovers, to smell, taste, textures, or perhaps all at once?

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 09 May 06 - 03:59 AM

Yes yes yes, of course! Doesn't everyone? Every key note has a different colour (C=pale yellow, G=darkish blue, B=pale blue, F=brick orange, E=white etc.) - and also sounds. Being dyslexic and therefore finding manuscript really really difficult/impossible to disentangle I find colours help a lot to separate out the patterns that music demands. Also spreadsheets, which swivel alarmingly if I don't make the boxes the correct colours. I use spreadsheets for lots of unexpected things such as set lists (it's a science organising a balanced set for a multi-instrumental duo, taking on board tuning, keys, instruments, lead vocal etc.) and they HAVE to be coloured if I'm going to be able to follow what I'm doing. And the colours relate to both the keys of the songs, and also the sound of the instruments. Same with midi work. Windy sounds are pale blue, percussion is yellow, organ is red, bass is dark blue, guitar is orange etc.

One of the UK's top concertina players is a colour/note person. Once he's in a key all the notes have the correct colours, so it's almost impossible to play the wrong one (is that right Albert - you know him better than me)?

I used to paint a lot, but this wasn't really part of it. I've talked to other synaethesiacs and I don't think we're consistent. Most people have colours for days of the week, and they're usually different - though both my kids share mine (I discover). I don't taste anything when I'm playing - except Guinness!

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Stu
Date: 09 May 06 - 04:22 AM

There has been a facinating thread about this previously (here ).

Interestingly, I have a different colour palette to play from than Tom.

Chords: Am = beige, Bm=Dark blue C=red, D=brown, Em=purple, G=pale yellow

The keys roughly correspond. I was at a session recently where we normally play a mix and match of Irish, English and other snippets of music, but because of the make up of sessioneers we played mainly English tunes all night and the key of G dominated. I was cheesed off by the end of the evening because it was all pale yellow.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: JohnB
Date: 09 May 06 - 09:30 AM

My next tune is in the key of Red Flat.
More seriously how do you know the difference in coloured octaves?
JohnB

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: open mike
Date: 09 May 06 - 10:33 AM

not since i played my toy xylophone
with the colored keys...

but you might check out the color and music therapy
from the Anthroposophical belief system,which is practiced
at Waldorf Schools based on Rudolf Steiner's teachings.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 May 06 - 11:01 AM

Interesting subject. I don't perceive notes as colors - except silver - but I'm very aware of water - still water, flowing water, rough water, tumbling water, merging water - in the texture of notes. Is that similar? Or another facet of the complexity?

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: pavane
Date: 09 May 06 - 11:05 AM

My program HARMONY can SHOW them as colours, but probably the wrong ones!

Perhaps I should provide a palette to let users customise the score to correspond to their own system of synaethesia?

What about accidentals?

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: M.Ted
Date: 09 May 06 - 03:51 PM

When I was learning guitar, I heard certain chords as colors--somewhat different than others --but I did have C maj as pale yellow-Dm carrot-orange, Em brownish green, F a grayish blue, G7 green with a bit of yellow in it--F6 was a pastel blue, as was Dm7, Am was red--with practice, most of it disappeared, though I still notice extra musical associations with certain scales and tone alterations some times.

I generally avoid talking about it, first, because it is a pretty subjective thing, next, because any discussion usually segues into stuff about auras and other wooky-wocky things, and last because there are plenty of tangible objects that are colored in one way or another--enough to keep any converstion going for hours--

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 09 May 06 - 04:09 PM

I don't see individual notes as having colours, but keys do.

A is dark saturated green, D is yellow, C is light blue, G is reddish-brown, E is electric lime green, F is chocolate brown.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Bert
Date: 09 May 06 - 04:45 PM

No. Pity though it would make tuning the guitar easier. "I think I need a little more burnt umber on the D string"

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 09 May 06 - 07:12 PM

Pauline L., who said Jimi Hendrix had synaesthesia, and why--any specifics?

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 09 May 06 - 07:46 PM

Well, we have terms as "blue notes" and "white noise" etc. So I suppose notes are aural colors and colors are visual notes. God, I need to shut up.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 09 May 06 - 11:17 PM

M. Ted, my guess is that this is a very subjective experience, and the colors for different notes/chords/keys are different for different people. Thank you for sharing yours. And thanks to the others too--this is fascinating.

There's a lot of sound/color theory out there, but I'm much more interested in people who have their own personal experience with it.

Ebbie, your association with music and silvery water is quite splendid, and makes a lot of sense--at least, I got a visual association immediately when reading about it.

Elmer

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: pavane
Date: 10 May 06 - 02:22 AM

White noise and pink noise refer only to the distribution of frequencies within the noise. WHITE, because all frequencies are equally represented, by ANALOGY to white light, and PINK because the lower frequencies predominate, ANALOGOUS to reddish light.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: C-flat
Date: 10 May 06 - 03:27 AM

Not so much colours, as shapes or patterns for me, and even then very hard to describe, but something I've always been aware of without ever thinking about it until I heard it being described by someone else.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,Locksley
Date: 10 May 06 - 07:43 AM

I work for a psychometrics company, and having been tested to within an inch of my life, I know I'm primarily a visual person (as opposed to auditory, kinasthetic or data-rational). I definitely see chords as colours.

E - green
Em - dark green
A - red
Am - dark red
C - dark blue
G - dark brown
D - beige
F - sort of grey-black
Strangely no yellows though...

I learned by ear rather than having lessons which is something I am now going back to do. Last week it was chord ornaments, and we wrote out some chord diagrams to show sus4s, 6s, maj7s etc. but I found it much easier to remeber if I did all the Es in green, all the As in red...etc.

Did anyone decide on the colours or were they just there in your mind?

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 May 06 - 02:01 PM

Mine were just there in my mind. It took me a while to realise I was even experiencing this.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Sean Belt
Date: 10 May 06 - 03:15 PM

No, I don't see musical notes as colors. However, like GUEST,Jack Campin, I do associate various keys with colors. Jack and my list of keys don't corolate, though. Playing Old-Time music, I tend to play in a limited set of keys:

A & Am = Sunshine Yellow
D = Orange
G = Grey or blue
C = Clear or an absence of visible color
All modal tunes seem to be bright green for me.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 10 May 06 - 05:15 PM

I remember seeing an advertisement a few years back in "Guitar Player" magazine touting an ear-training program that uses a note-as-color learning technique. The gist of their claim was that anyone can be taught to have "perfect pitch" by learning to "see" notes as colors.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 10 May 06 - 08:18 PM

I've been bopping around the web learning about this subject. Seems that Duke Ellington was a synaesthete:

"I hear a note by one of the fellows in the band and it's one color. I hear the same note played by someone else and it's a different color. When I hear sustained musical tones, I see just about the same colors that you do, but I see them in textures. If Harry Carney is playing, D is dark blue burlap. If Johnny Hodges is playing, G becomes light blue satin."

quote source:
George, Don. "Sweet Man: The Real Duke Ellington." G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1986, pg. 226

Elmer

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colours?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 May 06 - 09:11 PM

That seems to clearly prove that the 'colour' is only a personal mental link between various centres of each individual's brain, since he detects a different entity for each player doing the same note, thereby overturning any possibility for any real objective scientific 'music-colour charts'.

Still interesting, all the same.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: pavane
Date: 11 May 06 - 02:57 AM

That's why I suggested my program could provide a user-defined palette!

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colours?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 May 06 - 06:42 AM

Pavanne, I have been meaning to ask you a question about your program.

Have you ever read the story of the creation of the IBM OS360?

:-)

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 11 May 06 - 08:51 PM

I've heard colours for as long as I can remember - both keys and single notes (though the two mirror each other) and also days of the week. What's interesting among those who experience this is how different everyone's colours are from each other. For me, music in the following keys definitely "sounds" red, dark blue, or whatever; and I find it especially noticeable when tuning my harp. Anyway, for the record:

C = White
D = Red
E = Yellow
F = Green
G = Dark blue
A = Purple
B = Black

Minor keys and flat/sharp keys tend to be shades of the same colour as their counterparts above - but A Minor is clearly grey, not purple; and D minor is not red but bluish.

Monday = Light blue
Tuesday = Dark blue
Wednesday = Green
Thursday = Orange
Friday = Black
Saturday = Red
Sunday = Light yellow

These sensations stretch so far back into childhood and early awareness that the two elements are inseparable, e.g. I cannot hear or play F as anything but green.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: pavane
Date: 12 May 06 - 03:54 AM

Foolestroupe

The story I heard was that IBM put it to tender internally. The Computer Science people tendered, but were undercut by the Data Processing side (Don't know the real names of the departments)

In fact they went so far over their estimate that they nearly bankrupted IBM, and left them with the mess that they still have in MVS, instead of a real OS.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: pavane
Date: 12 May 06 - 03:57 AM

I hope you weren't implying my program is a mess....

Or is it yu think it is just trying to do too many things?

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 May 06 - 07:30 AM

The point that I made was that they kept on endlessly adding features so much that the original plan became clumsy & corrupted.

Now I'm not trying to be nasty, just helpful. The author of the book "The Mythical Man-Month" discussed the IBM project, as he was involved in it. The point is that too many add ons can break the original concept, not to say that yours has, but it's just a friendly warning not to get too carried away... :-)

"Or is it you think it is just trying to do too many things? "

I wouldn't know without scanning the code - the last time I checked it out, it seemed to do what it was supposed to, except for a few things I mentioned at the time - haven't had time to keep up with you.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 12 May 06 - 11:38 AM

Thanks so very much to everyone who has posted about the colors they hear. I deeply appreciate your sharing your experiences. I have a question, and this may seem incredibly dense to synaethetes, but since I am not a synaesthete and am truly trying to understand the phenomenon, it is a sincere one:

Are color and sound one sensory experience, or do you experience color and sound as two senses, with one sense triggeriing the other? Do you experience it as hearing colors and seeing sounds, or do you see a color when you hear a chord or a key or a note, or hear a note, chord, key, etc. when you see a color?

Thanks,

Elmer

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colours?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 May 06 - 11:40 PM

The brain electrical currents bleed over from one brain section into adjacent ones. This is normal. If you want to experience it yourself, go into a 'flotation tank' session - NO external sensory input, sound, light etc, floating in the water in the dark.

If you have never done such things before, do it under supervision, or you may not come out sane - I'm not really kidding about the going insane bit!

I can't remember the guy's name but he wrote several books on related topics, 'the eye of the cyclone', etc, and he died recently I think.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 13 May 06 - 01:35 AM

Foolestroupe, are you a synaesthete?

There are certainly artificial ways to muck around with sensory functioning--dropping acid is another one--and there is lots of neurological data on the sensory systems. However, I suspect that true synaesthesia can't be artificially induced. And different individuals experience it differently. That's why I'm humbly asking them's that has it what it's like.

Thanks,

E.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 May 06 - 02:14 AM

As said above, I do get a very mild crossover with food tastes, and 'music', but I can easily ignore it!

Hearing/playing music has no feedback the other way.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 13 May 06 - 04:43 AM

Music and flavours--what could be a better combination? Thanks for re-explaining.

E.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 May 06 - 10:35 AM

If you think of the way that you experience certain colors and then think of that experience being triggered by a stimulus that is not visual, you will have it-

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,Pat
Date: 17 Jun 11 - 02:38 AM

Funny you mention it. I see some notes as colours. For example
C - yellow
D- blue
A- red
E or G - green
C#- purple (which is odd cause C is yellow :/

Pretty odd I know

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,Pat
Date: 17 Jun 11 - 02:42 AM

Correction:
C#.......it was the key of C# minor I see as purple

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 17 Jun 11 - 05:12 AM

Hi Pat - Nice to see this thread again, especially as I'm struggling at the moment with a "green" piece of music that doesn't seem to want to settle down.

Just for interest & comparison, what colours do you "see" the keys in? Your notes are quite different from mine. Have you always had this perception? I have, from as far back as I can remember. There was a piano in the house and a huge number of records, popular & classical; plus I had a bunch of musical toys (xylophone, ukelele, recorder, autoharp, "melody bells") so from a very early age I played and listened to lots of music (including my mother's beautiful piano playing). Wonder if that made a difference?

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 17 Jun 11 - 05:21 AM

OK, OK... before I get killed... yes, I know... those instruments I had as a kid (apart from the bells) are not "toys". Should've worded it better.

But they are great instruments for kids because they're intuitive, not too complicated, and fairly indestructible. As a music teacher, when parents ask me - as they sometime do - what toy instruments to get their musically-inclined child, I recommend those, e.g. a uke rather than a toy plastic guitar etc. And also encourage the child to sing with them. Apologies for the unintended slight -

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 17 Jun 11 - 05:27 AM

> what toy instruments to get their musically-inclined child, I recommend those

erm, I meant "instead of a toy, get a real instrument"



[only opens her mouth to change feet...]

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 17 Jun 11 - 10:11 AM

I don't usually sense music as color, but the song 'Climb Every Mountain' is definitely maroon for me.

A different sort of synesthesia: When I make a really ugly mistake on the piano, my body reacts as if assaulted by a very bad smell.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Jun 11 - 12:20 PM

I can sing a rainbow.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Jun 11 - 02:15 PM

No

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 17 Jun 11 - 07:08 PM

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss - PM
Date: 09 May 06 - 03:59 AM

Most people have colours for days of the week, and they're usually different - though both my kids share mine (I discover).

I always thought I was unique in having different colours for each day of the week.

Obviously not, but do most people really do this ?

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: nager
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 01:22 AM

Now I know why so many folkies sound so bad when they sing... they know their colours okay but are tone deaf!!

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 03:03 AM

> I always thought I was unique in having different colours for each day of the week. Obviously not, but do most people really do this?

Don't know about "most people" but I do (see my May 11 '06 post above).

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,Gail
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 07:06 AM

My brother has synaesthesia and from being a young child has seen musical keys as colours.
He was also born with severe hearing loss and, as he went on to become a professional musician, we always assumed this associating colour with music was his brain heightening his other senses to compensate for his deafness. However, more recently we've understood that this is not the case and that synaesthesia is common in people with no sensory loss.
It also takes other forms such as feeling words or tasting colours and can actually be quite debilitating. I once worked with a girl who fainted when anyone said certain words, perfectly innocuous ones such as 'elbow'.

I think my brother has found his own synaesthesia to be quite useful, though he was probably about 25 before he even knew that other people didn't have this 'skill'.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,susanc
Date: 19 Jun 11 - 03:00 PM

I have seen days of the week in colors as far back as I can remember. I never paid any attention to it as I thought it was my thing and was of no bother to me. When the article about other people doing this came out I was surprised that anyone was even studying it. I told my mother and she freaked out and wanted me to go to a doctor! Medical and psychiatric.

I don't see notes in color, just the days of the week such as:

Tuesday, Friday, Sunday--Yellow
Saturday--Red
Wednesday--Sort of a purplish eggplant

This has never gone away and feels normal to me.

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: Hamish
Date: 20 Jun 11 - 08:33 AM

Google on synaesthesia - it's a fascinating area. Wikipedia has a long article about it. Here's a tiny edit: "Over 60 types of synesthesia have been reported... While cross-sensory metaphors (e.g., "loud shirt," "bitter wind" or "prickly laugh") are sometimes described as "synesthetic," true neurological synesthesia is involuntary. It is estimated that synesthesia could possibly be as prevalent as 1 in 23 persons across its range of variants... Famous synesthetes include David Hockney, who perceives music as color, shape, and configuration, and who uses these perceptions when painting opera stage sets but not while creating his other artworks... Composers include Duke Ellington, Franz Liszt, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Olivier Messiaen, whose three types of complex colors are rendered explicitly in musical chord structures that he invented... Other notable synesthetes include musicians Billy Joel, Itzhak Perlman..."

Subject: RE: Do you see musical notes as colors?
From: GUEST,susanc
Date: 22 Jun 11 - 11:29 PM

I wish there was some use for my days of the week colors but I don't seem to have the very creative kinds of synaesthesia, if I have it at all. Also, I read that it is more common in the left-handed, which I am. So here I am, left-handed and uselessly seeing colors.