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A Brief History of Synaesthesia and Music
by Sean A. Day
February 21, 2001
Sean A. Day is a fairly unknown composer, who has written few works in his spare, hobby time. Sean synesthetically "sees" colors corresponding to musical timbres; each instrument has its specific color.
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Let us now explore a little bit of the history of synesthesia in music:
It might seem an odd thing to start such a history with a look at ancient mathematicians and astronomers, but some of them offered important initial cornerstones to later theories on synaesthesia. Around the year 550 B.C., to begin with, the Pythagoreans offered mathematical equations for the musical scales, showing that musical notes could be seen as relationships between numbers. A musical scale, for example, could be divided into eight notes, an "octave" scale, which repeats its sequence as the musical notes proceeded higher or lower. To use a basic example, this could be the C-Major scale on the piano, consisting of just the white keys: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. This is also the basic "do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do".
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Plato.
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Almost 200 years later, around 370 B.C. or so, Plato wrote Timaeus, in which the soul of the world is described as having these same musical ratios. A cosmology was emerging in which the planets' radii (the planets' order actually varied, depending upon the author) were set with a ratio sequence of 1:2:3:4:8:9. Later, ratios would emerge with the following ratio sequence: Moon = 1; Venus = 2; Earth = 3; Mars = 4; Jupiter = 14; Saturn = 25. This sequence approximated the Greek diatonic musical scale's ratios, thus the planets were tied to music, and a concept of "the music of the spheres" was initiated.
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Aristotle.
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Shortly after Plato, around 350 B.C., Aristotle wrote to maintain that the harmony of colors were like the harmony of sounds. This set the stage for a later equating of specific light and sound frequencies, as Aristotle's works were translated and incorporated into European sciences. At about this same time, Archytas of Tarentus (c. 428 – 350 B.C.) introduced the «chromatic» (12-tone) scale to Greece. This was seen as a compliment to the two main scales: the diatonic (a whole-note or full-tone scale); and the enharmonic (quarter-tones). Around 1492, Franchino Gaffurio was re-introducing colorized Greek modal music to Europe, with the following system: Dorian = «crystalline» color; Phrygian = orange; Lydian = red; and Mixolydian = an «undefined mixed color» (which is, admittedly, somewhat vague). By the late 1580’s, the painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo was formally equating «dark» with high pitches and white with low pitches (see Dann 1998) – which is the reverse of the more «normal» trend of low being dark and high being white. Athanasius Kircher, around 1646, developed a system of correspondences between musical intervals and colors, based basically upon complex traditional symbolisms, as follows:
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octave
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green
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seventh
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blue-violet
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major sixth
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fire red
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minor sixth
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red-violet
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augmented fifth
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dark brown
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fifth
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gold
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diminished fifth
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blue
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fourth
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brown-yellow
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major third
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bright red
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minor third
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gold
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major wholetone
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black
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major wholetone
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black
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minor second
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white
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minor wholetone
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grey
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Comment List
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Alice Crossroads
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06.02.2008 23:16
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I have just found out about this wonderful thing called synaesthesia and i think it is beautiful the way you picture songs colers places and things. I found out about this just yesterday and i am eager to learn more about it all. I read the book " A Mango Shaped Place" and typed up synaethesia to learn more about it and came across this.
i am speechless
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Phil Nyce
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11.12.2007 21:19
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I can never pinpoint the exact color of the notes i hear and they usually mix with sort of image that is difficult to describe.
When distortion or overdrive is added to guitars, i get this static or grainy type of image. this is the only somewhat describable image and it varies from degree of overdrive to degree.
It's not only color, but i "see" the sound or note. If something is played on a violin, i see the note drawn out and i usually see it in a tan color.
Piano notes seem to have a more percussive and black and white image to them, like the keys.
High to mid-range guitar notes are almost always yellow and the guitar screech from Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" is very purple and grainy with overdrive.
bass guitars have colors in the black to purple range, incorporating other dark yellow tones as well.
This is the best description i can give. It's really impossible to communicate the "sensation" or "image" that reflects the music but there's definitely something weird about it.
It makes music more interesting and adds "dimension".
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T P
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30.08.2007 16:38
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http://theartbeyondsight.blogspot.com/
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sam burrell
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16.11.2007 08:35
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> http://theartbeyondsight.blogspot.com/
yea
i dunno
when i hear an individual note
i see a flurry of colors that act in different ways
like
a low E flat
i see a flashing of lights
and i feel weightless and extra heavy at the same time
but as soon as i hear more notes together
like in a song
in my mind
i see places
these places are usually more vivid than the real world
but i can't help but wonder if i really have synesthesia
or if i just have a wild imagination
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lance h
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07.04.2006 07:03
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i also experience notes and sounds as 'textures' and sometimes colors. Dm is a deep midnight blue, Dmaj more purple in hue. the 'textures' are akin to a 'feeling on the skin' but on some other skin that doesn't exist - somehow outside of spatial dimension.
the curious thing, for me, is that these effects generally only occur at high volume levels, or intensities. and they are not neccessarily 'logical' at all: the white needle of a test pattern whine is somehow also blunt and smooth and chrome and cool.
somehow, somehow: this has led me to a love of noise music and experimental artists who work with high-volume soundscapes. i just hope i don't go deaf anytime soon ;)
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Cecily s
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08.01.2006 15:06
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I am a synesthesiac with perfect pitch, and I always see different notes as colours, not keys. For example, a C major chord consists of a C - red/yellow, E - pink, and a G - brown. When I hear this chord, I see all of these colours ina picture that I can't describe. It has been very interesting to see how other people conceive things, and also how they can find it difficult to describe. I also see the texture of sounds; a c major chord played quite long on a stringed instrument reminds me of something in a very sticky substance, amber or resin, for example.
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Kip Rosser
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21.01.2005 08:52
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This is one of the most comprehensive treatises I've ever read about the phenomenon of synaesthesia. The depth and breadth of the research is stunning.
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Nicole Collins
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16.11.2004 07:55
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Thanks for an informative article. It has given me lot's of names to follow up on.
I am a painter and teach Colour and 2D Design at an art college and am researching for a section on synaesthesia for my classes. I'm really looking forward to exposing the students (and myself) to some experimental music to go along with the abstract painting that we will explore.
cheers
Nicole Collins
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marty quinn
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17.10.2007 23:23
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Nicole,
I have just given a talk at the MET as part of the Art Beyond Sight Multimodal Approaches to Learning, Creativity and Communication on ArtMusic. I would be interested to hear what you think of my approach. You can view and listen to a number of art works as music at www.drsrl.com/artmusic.
Regards,
Marty Quinn
>
> Thanks for an informative article. It has given me lot's of
> names to follow up on.
> I am a painter and teach Colour and 2D Design at an art
> college and am researching for a section on synaesthesia
> for my classes. I'm really looking forward to exposing the
> students (and myself) to some experimental music to go
> along with the abstract painting that we will explore.
> cheers
> Nicole Collins
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