Colour association with musical keys

[Madiel]

All sorts of combinations are possible, although sound/colour is the most common combination.

The mother of a friend of mine (or old friend, really, haven't seen for years) saw colours for proper nouns - people's names, names of the days of the week and so on. She picked her children's names based on the colours they evoked.

[snyprrr]

This reminds me of the old "psychedelic" light shows from the '60s and '70s.  Interesting, but I never felt it added that much to the musical experience.

The trouble I have with the whole "synesthesia" thing is that sound is one medium, air vibration, and one set of frequencies; while color is another medium and frequency set completely.  Any associations between color and sound would thus appear to be only in a person's mind.  And I've gathered that not everyone sees the same colors for the same music...

I can dig what you're saying. Who?, baby,.. who is in charge of the Key to Perception? No one person's imagination would do; this has to be researched (can you imagine a room full of Scriabins???- probably more scientific). Surely there is a Science to the Complexity of the Correlation of Sound Waves and Light Rays?

If something "expresses itself" 57 times a minute, whether a sound wave, or light, or bla bla... whatever it is, it's still doing 57 of them.


I personally am like the one who said they can't tell what key it is. But when I'm writing,... in my head, g# minor has such a cool sound that I'm not sure a minor does. I know that on guitar, f# minor is a super cool key, but, for a String Quartet, apparently not so much.


In what key did they bring down the walls of Jericho?

[snyprrr]

Color-Note relations in terms of piano keys according to Scriabin's perception:

Incense and Peppermints, the colour (out) of time! The Farfisa Speculation

[jochanaan]

...In what key did they bring down the walls of Jericho?

I don't think it was in a key.  That's why the walls came down!

[Jaakko Keskinen]

I'm not at all colorblind, but I am "key blind". I don't have a clue what key is playing...

You're not alone: I have kind of a same problem. I need to have a score at hand to help me to recognize the difference between another keys.

[EigenUser]

Earlier today I was thinking about Messiaen's Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum and it occurred to me that it isn't so much color I associate with certain parts, but rather temperature. For instance, the massive chords at the ends of the 1st and 4th movement almost literally make it feel like a bitter-cold, icy wind blowing through the room. On the other hand, the entire 5th movement conjures up visions of magma and flames.

Has anyone ever made this connection between music and temperature?

[xochitl]

i have aspergers and all my life equal temperament has bothered me a little bit. once in high school i retuned a piano till the major and minor intervals all sounded 'right', and of course it didnt take long to realize modulation was impossible after that! (didnt figure out why until i ran into Partch and finally everything made sense haha). within ET tho, i'd say i'm hyper-sensitive to intonation but the key makes no difference whatsoever. if all the ratios are the same it's only a question of higher/lower. i sense the whole thing more as a huge exponential spectrum from bottom to top and whatever 'key' a piece falls in is meaningless unless you're using non-ET. does that make sense or am i just strange?

i dont really get the notion of perfect pitch. i mean is it only within a=440 in ET for us modern westerners, and if so, isnt it more a type of 'aural photographic memory'? can you have perfect pitch only in the music you grew up with or what

[North Star]

Earlier today I was thinking about Messiaen's Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum and it occurred to me that it isn't so much color I associate with certain parts, but rather temperature. For instance, the massive chords at the ends of the 1st and 4th movement almost literally make it feel like a bitter-cold, icy wind blowing through the room. On the other hand, the entire 5th movement conjures up visions of magma and flames.

Has anyone ever made this connection between music and temperature?

Perhaps not on this forum, but it's certainly a known form of synesthesia.

[Madiel]

I've lost count of how many times I've read temperature associations with Sibelius' music, as if it's going to be cold and wintry because he's from Finland. In contrast to hot-blooded Italians.

Which often seems to be just lazy stereotyping. But it's certainly possible for compositions to evoke particular imagery. The first example I can think of isn't actually a classical one, but a pop music one, and it's not temperature but time of day. Kate Bush's album 50 Words for Snow inevitably tends to evoke cooler temperatures, but I was very surprised to find myself irrevocably associating the first song on the album with night time, and the second song on the album with a crisp clear morning. This wasn't from the lyrics, but simply from the sound of the music before the lyrics even start.

And composers of lieder/art song are trying to make you sense things and envision scenes all the time. That's one of the ways we measure their success - we say a composer has done well if the music evokes something that is consistent with the words. If they can do that, it stands to reason that they can also evoke things when no words are present.

[EigenUser]

I've lost count of how many times I've read temperature associations with Sibelius' music, as if it's going to be cold and wintry because he's from Finland. In contrast to hot-blooded Italians.

I can see that in his music. I'm sure that much of it is because I am consciously aware that he is from Finland, but I can't help that! It's like thinking of the sea while listening to Debussy's La Mer because of the title. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't think of the sea if it weren't for the title. On the other hand, I think I can honestly say that the orchestral version of Ravel's Une Barque sur l'Ocean would almost certainly make me think of the sea even without the title.

Now that I've started thinking of it, there are other works that I get temperature associations with as well. For me I don't think it is any kind of psychological condition like North Star (Karlo?) posted, but merely an analogy.

Ligeti's Clocks and Clouds comes across as cool. Not cold -- just cool. In terms of color, that piece has definitely always made me think of dark purples and blues. Lontano, on the other hand, comes across simultaneously as darkness and blinding yellow/white light.

This past Monday I got the score of Messiaen's Trois Petites Liturgies. There is a nice introduction on the first few pages where Messiaen writes about the different colors that he associates (with various chord-scales written out).

[torut]

Yes, indeed. Anecdotally, note the Hogwood, Norrington, Gardiner and Savall in the following compilation of the first chords of the Eroica:

https://www.youtube.com/v/UnhlQUBsd6g

That's very interesting. Hogwood, Gardiner etc. sounded out of tune in this setting. (I was surprised that Toscanini's was also low.) However, when I listened to the beginning of Hogwood repeatedly, it no longer sounds strange. I suppose there is something related to psychoacoustics: if the following pitch is slightly lower than the preceding one, we have depressing/negative feelings, and in case of the opposite, we feel uplifting and positive things? For someone who has a strong memory, it may happen even when it is heard separately?

[torut]

i have aspergers and all my life equal temperament has bothered me a little bit. once in high school i retuned a piano till the major and minor intervals all sounded 'right', and of course it didnt take long to realize modulation was impossible after that! (didnt figure out why until i ran into Partch and finally everything made sense haha). within ET tho, i'd say i'm hyper-sensitive to intonation but the key makes no difference whatsoever. if all the ratios are the same it's only a question of higher/lower. i sense the whole thing more as a huge exponential spectrum from bottom to top and whatever 'key' a piece falls in is meaningless unless you're using non-ET. does that make sense or am i just strange?

I agree with you. I believe that the differences between keys in Classical music usually mean the different characteristics of keys/scales in non-ET.

i dont really get the notion of perfect pitch. i mean is it only within a=440 in ET for us modern westerners, and if so, isnt it more a type of 'aural photographic memory'? can you have perfect pitch only in the music you grew up with or what

I have been wondering that. If it is just imprinting and inflexibility, it looks an unfortunate trait if everything that is not A=440Hz sounds out of tune. The difference between perfect pitch and relative pitch is a long/persistent memory vs a short term memory? Also, I am curious about how a person with perfect pitch feels pure consonance that does not exist in ET.

[jochanaan]

i have aspergers and all my life equal temperament has bothered me a little bit. once in high school i retuned a piano till the major and minor intervals all sounded 'right', and of course it didnt take long to realize modulation was impossible after that! (didnt figure out why until i ran into Partch and finally everything made sense haha). within ET tho, i'd say i'm hyper-sensitive to intonation but the key makes no difference whatsoever. if all the ratios are the same it's only a question of higher/lower. i sense the whole thing more as a huge exponential spectrum from bottom to top and whatever 'key' a piece falls in is meaningless unless you're using non-ET. does that make sense or am i just strange?

i dont really get the notion of perfect pitch. i mean is it only within a=440 in ET for us modern westerners, and if so, isnt it more a type of 'aural photographic memory'? can you have perfect pitch only in the music you grew up with or what

I have perfect pitch.  Yes, it is a memory for specific pitches.  For example, I can hear a note played on a piano, without seeing the keyboard or player, and know instantly which note it is.  "Sound color" has nothing to do with it; I actually do not have the synaesthetic sense and have never associated sounds with colors.  On the other hand, I can hum a note and know that it is actually an A, or B flat, or whatever note it is.  I cannot quite hit A440 every time, but I can come very close.  My brother-in-law tested me once by playing an electronic tuner deliberately sharp 10 "cents," or ten hundredths of a half-step; I could tell that it was off.

You say you retuned a piano, xochitl.  Are you a piano tuner?  I can see why equal temperament would bother you, for it is in fact a compromise tuning in which all the intervals (except the octacve) are slightly out of tune, to avoid other intervals being more out of tune.

[Chaszz]

I also am unaware of and indifferent to keys. But, I remember reading that some of the great composers associated certain keys with certain feelings they wanted to express. Unfortunately I have no examples at hand to quote just now. Of course this could be because of the natural sounds of pitches of the various instruments in the orchestra they wanted to use. If a composer wanted to use horns he might want a key that took advantage of the horns' brightest tones.   

As for relationships to color, as was mentioned, visible colors are only one short section of the electromagenetic spectrum, which includes as well longer wavelengths like radio, microwaves and infrared (which is heat), and shorter wavelengths like x-rays and gamma rays. Sounds are vibrations of the air, a totally different medium. It seems much more likely any relationship between the two would not be mathematically scientific, but rather in the mind and feelings. 

[Madiel]

Well, it's not 'scientific' in the sense that there is no universal match between a particular sound and a particular colour. Each synesthetic person's sound/colour combinations are unique to them.

That doesn't mean it's just feelings and the 'mind'. It's the brain. It's the wiring in the brain of the individual person. The same sound will always create the same colour for that person. And that's scientific enough.

[amw]

That doesn't mean it's just feelings and the 'mind'. It's the brain. It's the wiring in the brain of the individual person. The same sound will always create the same colour for that person. And that's scientific enough.

The brain is the mind. Everything is 'all in your head'—vision, hearing, touch, smell, sensation, thoughts, emotions, logic, synaesthesia, what have you. (Mental illness is only 'all in your head' in the same sense that a fractured skull is; you can't 'think it away'.) Sort of annoys me when people use 'in one's mind' to mean 'not real'.

I know nobody here was actually doing that, but my inner brain scientist is massively pedantic.

[Madiel]

I said what I said precisely because there was a reference to mind and feelings as if the sensation were somehow less tangible than 'normal' sensations.

[RJR]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Young_%28scientist%29

Early research on colors.

[Fagotterdämmerung]

  I have good relative pitch but not perfect pitch, and have no key-color associations. I do perceive differences in terms of brightness and darkness in music, though it is not a strong association. For example a modulation to a minor key or more dissonant mode ( say, Dorian to Locrian ) will sound momentarily or contrastingly darker. But the effect disappears as the new key "normalizes" in my ear.

  Also, I've played a number of melody instruments in the past ( viola, horn, and bassoon - the latter only briefly ) where each note does have a separate tone color. On the viola for example, open strings, stopped notes that cause those to resonate, and stopped notes that don't, all have a more strong color difference than written key; with the horn less so, but there is a discernible difference between valved and non-valved notes. Then, with any instrument, how that note sounds within a range.

  For my ears, textural sensations, temperature, feel - the sense of touch more closely analogizes my experience of sound than vision.

 

[amw]

Yes, indeed. Anecdotally, note the Hogwood, Norrington, Gardiner and Savall in the following compilation of the first chords of the Eroica:

https://www.youtube.com/v/UnhlQUBsd6g

What I noticed more than the period tuning (which I was expecting) was German/continental tuning, A=444 or 445 or thereabouts, often used to make the orchestra sound more 'brilliant'. In this compilation, the differences are really obvious. (To me, anyway.) In recordings, the ears adjust, of course.