# Musical Colors **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 12, 2005, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944 "2005-04-12T09:16:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Beusonne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ab097/32.png) [@Beusonne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beusonne)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/1 "2005-04-12T09:16:19Z")
ello people, fabulous community. When I listen to music I often get a strong sense of color in my head. Well, not all music- usually only some rock music, but a lot of classical. For example, When I listen to the rock album Morning View by Incubus I get the following per track: 1 nice to know you - reds and oranges 2 circles - blue and gray 3 wish you were here - yellow and white, small hints of gray 4 just a phase - green 5 11am - gray 6 blood on the ground - green and yellow 7 mexico - green 8 warning - red 9 echo - blue and white 10 have you ever - white and gray 11 are you in - turqoiuse 12 under my umbrella - green and blue 13 aqueous transmission - yellow, brown, green Classical Music colors for me change with instrument type and tempo of the peice. Does this association have a name? Why does it happen, whats behind this? Do you think there could be a consistency in instrument type and color association, tempo and association etc among humanity in general? What music gives you the most color (or other unexpected sense)? Does a musician as a whole give you a color, individual tracks, both? I am interested in any types of reactions you get while enjoying the sounds surrounding your head, heck even if its not music- a lions roar for me? gold and brown- a cats meow? a warm red, everytime. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/2 "2005-04-12T09:44:33Z")
It may be called [synthenesia](http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/9766414.htm)? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/3 "2005-04-12T09:45:50Z")
And I’m curious… where do you actually “see” the color? Does your entire field of vision turn red? Is a little patch of color superimposed over the center of your vision? Or something else entirely? ---
**Author:** ![Beusonne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ab097/32.png) [@Beusonne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beusonne)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/4 "2005-04-12T11:12:47Z")
When the music begins, the colors spring at once sort of like equalizer bars, then depending on how the instrument sounds, the color presentation will vary, for instance if i hear a distorted electric guitar i see a wide band with perforations of sometimes transparency, sometimes another color, an acoustic guitar will give me thinner strips of color, kind of like needles with bulbs, usually in orange, yellow, brown whichever instrument is the most prominent creates the base color, this color usually sticks around and is sort of the matting for other colors to participate then lets say vocals come in, vocals usually look like wind swirling through, when they are high pitches they become more like water color and are usually very bright, if they are low pitches they become much more solid and monotonous with their movement percussion creates a rain droplet effect, snare hits are small smacks and cymbal crashes create splashes and the color will usually stick around for a moment or two and then fade these occurences all vary with each song bass lines are the ones that typically dont vary for me, they are almost always wholesome cylindrical blues, grays, blacks, or purples and i usually cant capture them in the mix of the top colors, for some reason there is a duality of vision type thing going on where i know what each is, but i cant keep them as one with classical music, violin strings are almost always red, but if you a piano comes in they will immediately change to blues and greens this all happens internally, i dont have the ability to reach out and touch/move the colors the way Sean Day could, that seems very physical, i cant imagine colors blocking my vision of an oncoming car or something, i only see these colors in my head and feel them throughout my body, during slow peices i usually see/feel them in my chest, they come in varieties of shape, size and sometimes they take form (blankets, clouds, animals) i guess it all depends on how creative i want to be but it always seems to come effortlessly, i know its strange to say one could “feel” a color but thats the only way i can describe it. smells create a big crossover too ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/5 "2005-04-12T12:06:41Z")
Yep, you are definitely a synthenesiac. Everyone has a small amount of sense-crossover, but it affects some people much more strongly. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/6 "2005-04-12T12:22:11Z")
I recall reading that the Van Halen Bros. of the group **Van Halen** , also Van Ha— I mean, have this condition/intersting state. ::Jerry Lewis voice:: Fronlaven halen! ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/7 "2005-04-12T15:40:04Z")
> [@Beusonne](#): > > When the music begins… Dude, that sounds like an awesome WinAmp visualization. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/8 "2005-04-12T16:35:21Z")
There’s a really cool passage in **The Phantom Tollbooth** where Milo conducts an orchestra which causes the various colors of the sunrise to appear. To begin, he bends his little finger and a lone piccolo plays, which causes a shaft of lemon light to appear on the horizon. I always kind of identified with that, because music feels like certain colors, but I don’t have an actual physical experience of seeing the colors. Very cool. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Cat\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Jones)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/9 "2005-04-13T14:40:45Z")
Slight hijack - I had to study “La Symphonie Pastorale” by Andre Gide for French, the protagnosit is teaching a blind girl all about, well everything really - and the way he finally manages to convey the concept of ‘colour’ is by using the analogy of music. He didn’t give a name for it tho’, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/10 "2005-04-13T15:32:07Z")
I’ve only seen one tiny portion of it, but there was a scene in _Mr. Holland’s Opus_ where the director played music for a deaf audience by linking it up to a set of animated lights. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/11 "2005-04-13T17:40:07Z")
You’ll have more luck Googling for info if you use the right spelling: synesthesia (or synaesthesia in British English). Comes from Latin, “syn” meaning together and “esthesia” meaning sensation. Would be a cool thing to have, but I can see it would be annoying when trying to shop in a Muzak-filled supermarket… ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/12 "2005-04-13T17:48:12Z")
Would this be a similar phenomenon? Do other people feel what they see? It’s like I’m rubbing the object on my face, when in fact I’m only looking at it. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/13 "2005-04-13T18:06:25Z")
And there is, of course, a song; [Synaesthesia](http://www.bobs.com/Lyrics.cgi?Synaesthesia) by The Bobs. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/14 "2005-04-13T18:12:23Z")
> [@fessie](#): > > Would this be a similar phenomenon? Do other people feel what they see? It’s like I’m rubbing the object on my face, when in fact I’m only looking at it. Yep, that’s another form of synesthesia. Basically any time two (or more) senses get cross-wired, that’s synesthesia. Me, I associate letters and numbers with particular colors–that’s one of the more “common” forms. My spouse has the “Winamp” variety, and I’m jealous. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Elenfair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cc9497/32.png) [@Elenfair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elenfair)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/15 "2005-04-13T21:35:27Z")
Welcome to synesthetic perception. I’m a synesthete too. Music, letters, numbers, shapes, months of the year, days of the week, etc… they all have a color, a taste and a texture. I am also a texture-to-taste/color synesthete, and that can really REALLY be freaky at times. Hee. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-colors/298944/16 "2005-04-13T21:48:07Z")
I am not a synesthete. However, for those who would like to know about it, the following Doctor Who fanfictions are told from the point of view of one such person. I really enjoyed them! From [Mystic Wild Parabola](http://www3.sympatico.ca/mudthehut/) comes The Synaesthesia Trilogy > [@R.J. Anderson](#): > > Several people have told me that it isn’t necessary to know much about Doctor Who, or indeed even like the show, in order to understand and enjoy these stories about the Eleventh Doctor and his companion Thea. So even if you’re not a Whovian, you might want to give 'em a try. > > [“Touching Indigo”](http://www3.sympatico.ca/mudthehut/docs/indigo.htm) > (25K) [Illustration](http://www3.sympatico.ca/mudthehut/img/indibgcl.gif) > In which we learn about synaesthesia, and how not to introduce yourself to a Time Lord. > > [“Tasting Mozart”](http://www3.sympatico.ca/mudthehut/docs/mozart.txt) (80K) [Illustration](http://www3.sympatico.ca/mudthehut/img/theamdcl.gif) > When the TARDIS accidentally drifts through a transdimensional gateway, the Doctor and Thea get legendary. > > [“Scent of Yesterday”](http://www3.sympatico.ca/mudthehut/docs/yesterda.txt) (140K) > A handy guide to motherhood, bereavement, and artron energy: “What to Expect When You’re Synaesthetic”. > > ``` > Plus... [*Hearing Endnotes*](http://www3.sympatico.ca/mudthehut/docs/endnotes.txt) (31K) > In which the author explains where she got all this weird stuff. > > ```