A very weird thing happened to me this week. I realized that I had started to think of two chords as having colors.

The first chord goes G-Bb-D-G, and for some reason it seems red. About the same red as a Coke can. I suppose that's a G minor; I haven't checked to see if it seems red in every inversion and position. I think it's the G more than the chord itself.

The other one is D-F-Bb-D, and I associate it with a light blue. If you've ever seen a blueberry popsicle, that's the color. I think the higher of the two D's provokes the sensation.

I was playing these chords over and over while practicing a piece, and that's when it occurred to me that I was thinking of them this way.

Has this happened to anyone else here?

I sorta do that too for me its:
(just the basic major keys)
A: Red
B: Orange
C: Yellow
D: Blue
E: Silver
F: Green
G: Hmmm...not sure about this one. Something warm, and bright though. Maybe pink

I also see colours when playing or listening to music. However, pitch and harmonies are not the only factors, timbre and register are also quite important.

An example: B-flat major looks blue to me, the timbre of a piano ranges from black (at the bottom) to white (at the top) and sort or greyish in between. If I listen to the Hammerklavier Sonata, it is clearly blue (gets brighter and darker, modulates to other colours, etc.). However, the coda of the first movement of Prokofiev's 5th Symphony (which is also in B-flat major) has some piano tremolos on B-flat in it. Those sound black , not blue at all, despite being in B-flat major. It seems that in an orchestral setting, timbre becomes more important than harmony, but I still haven't found out why I "hear" those colours as I hear them. Synaesthesia is a somewhat complicated thing.

i guess im color blind.....i dont see anything

Synaesthesia: a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.

Liszt, Messiaen, Rimsky-Korsakov and Sibelius were reputed synestheates and Scriabin a "psuedo synesthete".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia

http://home.comcast.net/~sean.day/Synesthesia.htm

http://prometheus.kai.ru/sines_e.htm

wow.....thats pretty hot......i want that

That's interesting that you mentioned that because one of the pieces I plan to learn in the near future is called Sketches in Color by Robert Starer. Sketches in Color comes in two sets. Each set contains a series of short pieces - each piece is supposed to represent a particular color. For example, the set I am learning (set 1) includes colors such as purple, grey, and even crimson! Of course, some of the colors, such as grey will sound more dissonant than others. You can probably hear a sample of this work on amazon.

Does this work in reverse, too?

Does anyone look at a color and hear a tone?

. . . Linda

Yup, it's one of the most fundamental aspects of Messiaen's music. Thanks for the links, that was interesting reading.

Well, there are certain substances reputed to do just that for you.. .

I would leave them alone if I were you though!

I've read that many people with absolute pitch have this kind of synaesthetic association of a note/key with a color. Does this apply to you guys?

A friend of mine, a clarinet player, claims not to have absolute pitch, but can, when he puts his fingers in the positions of various notes, whistle the pitch, and it's correct! He doesn't need to have his axe* in his hands to do this. Go figure.

*This is an affectation, trying to depict my friend as a rock musician, which he's not. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, have any rock bands started playing clarinet music.