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Notes as colours

5K views 46 replies 28 participants last post by  milandro 
#1 Ā·
Does anyone else visualize the notes as a colour ?

Not so much the notes when reading a piece of music, but rather when I'm thinking about an individual note, or key.
It's not something I've ever paid much attention to, but I do think of the main notes (flats or sharps don't seem to change anything) as having a specific coulour.

I always perceive :
C as Blue
D as Yellow
E as Blue
F as Brown
G as Green
A as Red
B as Orange

Just thought I'd throw it out there ... :mrgreen:

Also not sure why I think of C and E both as blue, that's just the way it is. :bluewink:
 
#4 Ā·
I had to look that up .... but that's it exactly !! :)

"Synesthesia can involve any of the senses. The most common form, colored letters and numbers, occurs when someone always sees a certain color in response to a certain letter of the alphabet or number."

Is that in absolute pitch, or relative to whatever horn you are playing (sop vs bari)?
That never occurred to me. No, it's not pitch/tone dependent.
 
#3 Ā·
Is that in absolute pitch, or relative to whatever horn you are playing (sop vs bari)?

But to answer your question, "No."
 
#9 Ā·
Sure .. if it's in C or E.

I'm sure this sounds bizarre to most people ... I was just hoping it was common enough that I wouldn't have to seek treatment !! :twisted:
 
#12 Ā·
it is not uncommon and mostly women have that
Well that might explain some other things !! :mrgreen: :bluewink: :mrgreen:

What I "experience" (which might be too strong a term) is nowhere near the intensity of the people in the video.
It's just a vague association - very ethereal.
Barely worth mentioning !

The Wikipedia article gives an example of another one that sort of applies to me too.
Whenever I think of what month it is and how it relates to some past or future event, I always picture the months laid out in an oval - with December at the top and July/Aug at the bottom. So right now we're coming down the left side of the egg !

C'mon ... everyone must do this one !! :mrgreen: :(
 
#15 Ā·
Now that I've been thinking about this for awhile, here's some clarification :

It's definitely the "key" that has the colour .. the letters of the alphabet have none. Nor do numbers or words (except words like blue or purple .. or chartreuse or periwinkle !!).
 
#16 Ā·
It's quite fascinating, Brendan, though difficult for someone without synaesthesia to imagine. So if you hear two tones together, do the colours blend together and make a third colour--like, do C and D played together look green, and if so, does that remind you of G?
 
#17 Ā·
No, nothing sounds like a colour to me.
Maybe it's like that for others.

I only imagine the key of D as yellow - nothing more.
When I hear a D, I wouldn't recognize it until I played it on the sax ... then I'd call it a B (alto/bari) and it would be orange !
 
#18 Ā·
there are many forms of synesthesia, and by the way, this is not univocal so two synesthetic persons will not necessarily see the ā€œ colorsā€ (or smell smells or taste tastes ) the same way. Iā€™ve ment people whom see words as colors and also numbers as colors.

Many synesthetic people have perfect pitch too but not all.
 
#22 Ā·
I know what you mean, but I don't see color, I "feel" specific..."textures?"

I will have an incredibly difficult time explaining how I associate sax notes, but I am the same about it being specific to the position of the note on the sax. All low Bb will have the same "texture" for me, regardless of concert pitch. For me, it's sax textures, not pitch.

I got you
 
#26 Ā·
All low Bb will have the same "texture" for me, regardless of concert pitch. For me, it's sax textures, not pitch.
What I do relate to is groups of notes as colours. Or Diminished 7th as say having a very dark Purple sound to it where as Whole tone is more maroon. A Major 7th chord is obviously yellow.... :)
I also perceive F as Brown, C as Blue, A as Red. I have Eb and Ab as shades of green Eb being lighter. etc..
All right !! I knew there had to be lots of us ! :bluewink:
 
#23 Ā·
Everyone is entitled to their own bag. The specific notes as colors is a little harder for me to grasp but I guess I can see it.

What I do relate to is groups of notes as colours. Or Diminished 7th as say having a very dark Purple sound to it where as Whole tone is more maroon.

A Major 7th chord is obviously yellow.... :)
 
#30 Ā·
When I see a color, I hear a sound. Never found a use for it, though.
 
#31 Ā·
The notion that most or even many have a form a Synesthesia contradicts the data which says that around 4 to 5% of the population has a form of permanent synesthesia and only a few more will have a blurred form of temporary one.

True the data is not univocal but at most people get to quote a number ( that to me is very far fetched of 25%)

In any case the total would stay in single figures although there might be some genetically induced variation in people in closed communities. There are many forms of synesthesia, which is not by definition linking numbers or sounds to colors.

This phenomena is actually the scrambling of the senses any sense can be linked to another.
 
#33 Ā·
I do not associate colors with pitches but I do associate tonal organization with color organization. I find many similarities between the color wheel and color theory and the western tonality (cycle of fourths, triads, keys and the chord structures within them. I kind of attribute to the fact that sound and color are both parts of nature and deal with natural laws of physics (both are wave forms).

Both color and sound can have harmony and dissonance, etc.
 
#36 Ā·
synesthesia is not limited to numbers or music being reflected as colors but it is literally the contemporary experience of two senses.

So you can have any kind of variation of all the 5 senses in this.

You may experience music, numbers, as colors but also as taste ands smell in a contemporary activation of sensorial pathways.

But whereas the associating of numbers or sounds with colors is clearly experienced as a confusion of the senses of some, most of us will associate a shape to a color ( as in that for me a sphere is red and a cube is blue and a triangle is yellow) or a name to a face or a shape.

This is the reason why it has been proposed to even change the name of this phenomenon to ideasthesia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideasthesia

This has serious implications to understand why music and visual arts have a profound sensorial influence which many of us share (not to the point to see the same colors but to the point of experiencing similar feelings).

In a broader sense this also reveals the fact that our brains have preferential pathways which are directly influencing the direction that our thoughts take, given a particular sensorial stimulation but also in conjunction with any communication medium.

In other words it is possible to say that for most things, we are programmed to respond to a certain situation with a certain response because of this pathways.

This gets very intriguing if you think that some socio-anthropologists have began hypothesizing that the whole concept of religion is a sensorial response similar to the ones we have described.

 
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