One type of synaesthesia is music colour synaesthesia, where a note, key or certain quality in music causes the synaesthete to experience colour. Some music color synesthetes find the colours they see in music to be so distracting they can’t work while listening to music.
I find this fascinating because I don’t possess this kind of synaesthesia.
As a grapheme synaesthete, I do have colour responses to music but in a completely different way. For example, if I know the name of the song, then the song will be whichever colour I experience for the name (currently I’m listening to Sawdust and Diamonds by Joanna Newsom which is a lovely bright yellow for the whole 10 minutes of this epic song).
I am a very musical person (I play the piano, alto saxophone, surdo drum [brazilian] and a bit of clarinet, guitar and banjo) so in learning to read music I also had colour responses to keys and the letters of the notes if I knew which ones were being played, plus the instrument itself, because all instrument, like all words, have colours too.
Also, major and minor keys have an impact on the colours I perceive – minor keys generally add a black/grey/brown tinge to the letter of the key.
Although all this extra colour information is going on in my head it’s not overwhelming or distracting, it’s just there without intruding which is pretty lucky I guess.
May 20, 2007 at 8:33 pm |
Very fascinating. I’d be interested to know more about colors that represent certain keys and instruments (especially guitar). Do you have more to share on that? What about songs in the keys of E, A, G, F#m, C, and D, which are typical guitar keys. What about the note E? Wow. Nice post…
Ignacio
http://www.igblog.wordpress.com
May 20, 2007 at 8:45 pm |
Thanks for your interest ig!
For me, E is yellow, A is black, G is dark green, C is red, D is dark grey/purple and F#m (i assume that’s minor) would be dark green (whereas F#maj would be lighter but not as light as F maj).
Having said that, it’s only if I actually know what key the song is in that I see the colour (if at all), because my primary synaesthesia is colours in response to words, letters and numbers and not sounds.
As I understand it, a music colour synaesthete would see the colours just from hearing the music rather than having to know the key.
May 21, 2007 at 8:50 pm |
I get it. Ok, I’m gonna send you some songs later, with no titles, see what colors you see, and use that for titles!!! I’m so playing with this…
Thanks!
IG
May 21, 2007 at 8:54 pm |
I’ll give it a go, but as I said, I’m not a music-colour syn so it’s possible I might not see any colours at all. Could be a good experiment for me too!
May 24, 2007 at 5:42 pm |
Hi there!
I came across your blog on a synesthesia site (I forget which one) so I thought I’d check it out. Very nice. I am a music/color synesthete as well as a pain/color synesthete. Needless to say, the music is much more enjoyable. lol. Check out my blog for more on my musical perceptions if you’re interested. http://sanesensations.blogspot.com/
_Nathanael
June 13, 2007 at 8:31 am |
Well, I was just wondering but would a piece in G MAJOR and a piece in g minor have different colors? I’m talking about the overall piece not the notes or chords. If so, what colors would both be? Specifically I’m wondering what color Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in g minor, Op. 23 would be. Any help would be great :]
June 13, 2007 at 2:07 pm |
Hi Dude. G Minor is a dark mucky green and G major is a lighter vibrant green. If I heard the music without knowing what key it was in I probably wouldn’t see green, but if I know I’m going to play a piece in G minor then I think of it as dark green.
It’s not the same for all synaesthetes. Each person has their own experiences and colours so if you asked another synaesthete they would probably come out with a completely different answer.
Hope that’s helped.
June 13, 2007 at 2:12 pm |
Also.. Chopin is black, 1 is white, 23 is red and yellow… so the whole title is very mixed up, but Chopin is the strongest word so black is the strongest colour.
October 1, 2009 at 11:49 pm |
Dear Lauren – I was so happy to read your response because I “see” what you do in the fact that the name is a color, the title, the notes etc.! It does, indeed get very confusing!!
June 20, 2007 at 12:01 am |
Hello,
We discovered daughter, 15, is a Synesthete only a year ago. She developed a severe migraine that lasted over a month with no relief. At the time she also had an eye exam and was found to have a slight thickening of her optic nerve. I thought there was a connection to the migraines. She casually mentioned the one eye saw brighter than the other but it was a slight variation. Thinking that it could be a clue to the migraines I started heavily questioning her in order to provide the doctors with information that they could use to help her in the next visit. To my surprise I got more information than I expected. When she started on the Z’s that she sees and the little dots that make the whole color, I had to stop her and have her start all over again. I thought I was hearing things. She then got frustrated while explaining because I didn’t understand. I had to stop her once more and tell her, what was obvious, that she thought everyone saw like she did. It took about a month afterwards doing research before I was satisfied that she wasn’t suffering from mental illness.
Her synesthesia is to sound and emotions. Everyone’s voice has a color and pattern that is always in motion. She sees halos around people but it’s a different color than their voices. She says she can never see a halo for herself but she can see that her voice color brings up similar shapes and colors to her father’s and mother’s combined. When she gets pinched she also experiences so I would guess that means pain too. The last time she was very depressed and crying she cried out that the colors had dissapeared and she saw only gray blobs. She did the test on “synesthete.org” but wasn’t able to do the chord test because there were too many sounds that made too many colors, Trying to pick out just one color as the instructions asked to do only gave her a migraine. Does anyone know about any other tests? Sorry I took up so much space here.
June 30, 2007 at 12:11 am |
[...] Just been reading this. This is exactly what I’ve [...]
September 7, 2007 at 8:31 pm |
qooltravel
qooltravel
May 30, 2008 at 10:16 pm |
Hello,
I’m thrilled to see (via this blog) that there are a lot of people who experience color with music. I’ve known of the term for a few years, and have met only one other person who was a synesthete, but he shrugged it off as quickly as anyone else. Throughout my life, I thought only musicians had this ability, but was surprised (and a little disappointed) to find that one of my college composition professors experienced nothing while listening/playing music and could hardly believe that it was real.
Over the weekend I read Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, an extremely interesting book, with a small chapter on synesthesia. It didn’t satisfy me, however, and today, in response to my thoughts on the subject, I wrote a blog on my myspace about my experiences.
But I have a question. Is it only colors that you see or is there also something else?
My synesthesia seems to have evolved over the last several years to the point that listening to music becomes an almost hallucinatory experience. It is really overwhelming, and like in the article above, I have to either turn music really low or off to concentrate on something.
My blog is pretty detailed, but I’ll summarize. Not only do I see colors (which are in constant motion), but shapes also appear, structures… all abstract. And there is also depth, like I can step into the music and it surrounds me for miles, creating pseudo-physical textures, so it seems. So far, I haven’t been able to find any records of this sort of experience.
Thanks for your insightful comments!
July 17, 2008 at 3:18 pm |
After searching for ages, I’ve finally found this blog. I don’t know anyone else who has synaethesia – and I didn’t realise that this even had a name until fairly recently. I have felt quite isolated, and the constant “you must be on drugs” comments have been very upsetting too.
I have music-colour, pain-colour and a few other types too. Sometimes, the colours I see can be overwhelming – and I have to turn the music off. My synaesthesia, like Sam who has posted a reply here too, involves moving coloured patterns, shapes and structures, and as some kind of release, I paint them.
It’s very nice to see that there are others out there…
October 2, 2008 at 2:44 am |
I am a synesthete in Virginia. I’ve known that I have synesthesia for a year now, and I haven’t told my family. I can’t, My mom would freak out and think I’m crazy
(maybe literally) and bring me to all these doctors that would say there’s nothing wrong. My brother would just think I was lying (I think that’s spelled correctly.) They’re notmean, but they are VERY judgemental, even though they try not to be. I’m just afraid that my mom will freak out, mostly. I have told a few of my friends. When I hear a sound, I see a color. When I feel something touching me, I see a color. I love having synesthesia, though. It’s like seeing fireworks every day of your life, and it never ends. It’s an artist’s dream, and I love to paint and draw. Music is awesome because all the sounds make beautiful colors. I hate fireworks. With all the sound and all the colors, there’s so much confusion you can’t even think! Did you know that the colors can go away due to stress? I learned that from a book. Thanks for hearing me out. It feels good to talk to some one who can relate to what I’m going through.
April 17, 2009 at 6:02 pm |
only experienced this condition for a short period several years ago.music would break down into dna like strands which was separated into individual colours.these strand segments also had names,unfortunately the only one i can remember is trixel.could also smell a few colours too.this all came on suddenly,but over the course of a week completely faded away.not sure if i’m odd,but would like this ability to come back as it was quite an experience having not grew up with it
June 2, 2009 at 7:00 pm |
This is an exciting day for me! I have had synaesthesia since my earliest memories and I am 59 years old now. In my situation it has manifested itself in music/colors
for my entire life, as well as sight/colors that surround people. It is very hard for me to enter a large room with many people because of the color overload. My first visit to Times Square was almost too overwhelming! In the Sistine Chapel I had to close my mind to the crowd and concentrate on the ceiling to avoid overload. I was very interested in Anna’s comment about her daughter who cried when the day was gray with blobs. I have experienced this many times in my life’s ups and downs – especially when I became a widow suddenly. It took many, many months to have the colors restore themselves.
I have taught children’s music (singing) for 37 years and I always found that the concerts (where I played the keyboard by colors in my head)were most wonderful because of the extraordinary colors that would flow from the children’s voices as they sang.
The thing that I have found unusual in my life is the fact that, as I age my senses seem to be expanding.I now seem to experience colors with smell, taste and especially hearing. I also have been having some health problems and am starting to find that certain pains in my body manifest themselves with colors.
I am very grateful that I was born with this condition. It has enhanced my life tremendously and made it much richer. I always feel sorry for those who do not experience what I do. How much they miss!
June 3, 2009 at 10:31 pm |
Thank you to everyone who posted a message on here over the last couple of years – this blog had been left untouched but your messages still arrived at my inbox and I read them all.
I will begin to reply to them on the blog over the next few days, even comments from two years ago.
Thanks for reading.
June 3, 2009 at 10:42 pm |
[...] (comment on ‘music colour synaesthesia’ June 20th 2007) – it’s good that you found out about what your daughter was [...]
July 12, 2009 at 4:24 am |
Hello.
So im a singer song writer. When i play certain notes or chords or if a song is in a certain key i see different colours. for example when i play Em i see green for Anything in A i see red tones. Its weird i kind of just see the colour and nothing else but only for certain notes. Em is by far the most vivid. is this synesthesia? It can be very distracting when i perform. Il be playing a tune and i will just see the colour. is it synesthesia or is it just a weird musician thing? I would love to know!
September 4, 2009 at 5:57 am |
that’s interesting what Anna said about her daughter seeing gray blobs when she was depressed. I’ve always hated gray in large doses because it’s such a drab depressing color. I wonder how much is synesthesia and how much is just human nature. It’s so confusing…
September 5, 2009 at 2:15 am |
Hello , you know I have only 13 years old and I have synaesthesia but I always thought that.. it was normal but I saw a tv program about that and I just tell my mom that I see colors in music especially in techno music
im only take piano class like when I was 8 and choir class but since I saw that tvprogram I became more interested im sorry about my spelling is just that im from Mexico and im just 13 …. thanks for this info.!!
October 1, 2009 at 10:45 pm |
Would any music Synaesthetes be so kind as to define for me which colors go with which musical notes? I’ve read a few accounts but so far nobody has laid it out exactly, A-G, matching each note in the scale with its appropriate color. This would be very helpful to me, thanks. Anyone who has experienced it would surely agree it is a superior method of understanding music.
October 1, 2009 at 11:43 pm |
I would be glad to tell you what I “see” and have “seen” since I was a very little child:
A=very dark purple almost black
B=light blue
C=black/not shiney
D=tan or sandy color
E=yellow/gold
F=bright red/very shiney
G=green – like Christmas green
I know that others “see” different colors in each note but these are not negotiable to me and have never changed. I am almost 60 years old now.
When I was a little girl I would “see” these colors as I played but never knew until much later that everyone did not see them. The chords corresponding to each note are the same colors but a ‘7′ chord adds tan to the chord and a minor chord adds darkness into the color. The key signatures are colored too so it makes it even nicer.When my students (children) sing colors flow from them all over the room. It is wonderful!
I would be very glad to be involved with anyone who is interested in this study!
October 1, 2009 at 11:46 pm |
Also remember that people with synaesthesia “see” colors that there are no human words for. Sometimes I cannot describe in words what I see – they are not colors in the human eye spectrum – very neat!
October 2, 2009 at 2:54 am |
Thanks Barbara for the reply, I’m aware many Synaesthetes do not have common experiences, but I’m curious if any coincidences or inversions of particular notes/colors tend to occur between multiple people. As I’m beginning to study music, I’m curious if I’d be able to incorporate color definitions into my study.