# Colour Associations



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Do you associate a piece of music or a favourite composer with a particular colour?
Occasionally, I do.

Obviously, there is the *Ritual Fire Dance*.

Tchaikovsky's 1812 is *an august indigo-blue*. I think it's the majesty of the ending, with some idea of Fate being blue (think sky; think sorrow) that does it.

The music of Carolan isn't emerald green because he's Irish, but *a mellifluous aquamarine*, with associations of fluidity, tears and so on.

Lully's Marche pour la Cérémonie des Turcs is *a rich crimson damask* - such splendid ruby sounds!

How about you?
Thanks in advance for any replies. :tiphat:
_And if not - I enjoyed expressing myself..._


----------



## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Hmm.....I'd like to respond to this question, but I'm afraid that my responses, if I had any, would be more the result of externals, like the predominant color of the LP album cover I gazed at when I first got to know the piece.

For example, an orangish-red for Saint-Saens' Symphony No 3, or dark purple for Nielsen's Symphony No 5.

At the moment, I can't think of any work that on its own suggests a color to me.

Sorry.


----------



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Colours. You mean as in chromatic?


----------



## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

I get almost obsessed with the color green when listening to Schubert's "Die schone Mullerin."


----------



## musicrom (Dec 29, 2013)

For whatever reason, I associate Bela Bartok with green and Jean Sibelius with blue. Maybe because these are colors on their home countries' flags? For Bartok, I feel like his music resembles Chagall's artwork somehow. I don't know where any of this even came from - I don't really associate any other composers with any colors.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Can't think of any color association with any piece of music. However, I'm sure my reliable online distributor of all things classical sees green a lot whenever I order.


----------



## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I know exactly what you mean! Different works have their own colors.

Chopin tends to be a light-ish blue, but sometimes he has flashes of bright reds and yellows
Beethoven's 3rd is definitely gold, as is Schubert's 9th
Mahler's music is so fun because each movement of his symphonies is a different color.
- I.e. The 7th: Dark Purple; Dark Blue; Black; Light Blue; Orange-Yellow
Bach's Goldberg Variations are a light green
Mozart shares this light green, along with some gold and light pink
R.Strauss tends to be pink, red, orange, and yellow
Schoenberg's music is usually white, some works have other colors


----------



## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

I'm about as synaesthetic as a brick so music doesn't conjure up any colours mentally for me. 

smells on the other hand...


----------



## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I'm even less synaesthetic then Jobis! I see a world of different coloured bricks, but none of them sing! 

/ptr


----------



## Brad (Mar 27, 2014)

Liszt's first ballade is a deep brown and it reminds me of autumn.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Rachmaninoff, Liturgy of St John Chrysostom - *an ineffable caerulean...*

Renaissance Spanish music of Diego Ortiz - *a rich gold, as of abundant harvest, or pungent mustard*.

Rebel, Chaos and the Elements - *thunder-purple*.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Britten's Turn of the Screw in places evokes an image of murky green - the work gives me a feeling of creepy stagnation/isolation as epitomised by the lake in the grounds where I can envisage the water being dank and ridden with algae.

Some of Maxwell Davies's work brings to mind silver and black - perhaps that's something to do with the Orcadian weather when at its most tempestuous.


----------



## Guest (Aug 13, 2014)

I definitely associate colors, but half the time it turns out to be an album cover creeping into my subconscious. Which has always made me wonder: is it the album cover, or is the album cover simply made well for the music?


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I do associate colors with music, but the reasons are not always the same, and not always clear to me. I can think of a few causes for such associations: 1) synaesthesia, the actual physical activation of one sense's brain centers by a different sense (I don't think I'm affected this way); 2) association of music and color with emotions or moods suggested by both (e.g. Haydn's music feels optimistic, yellow-green feels optimistic, therefore Haydn suggests yellow-green); 3) ideas associated with music (text of a song, plot of an opera, program of a tone-poem) suggesting colors which we impute to the music; 4) the album cover thing. That last one is pretty powerful: I see bright red for _Die Walkure_ and _Rigoletto_, blue-green for _Das Rheingold_, brown for _Die Meistersinger_, blue for _Parsifal_. gold and yellow for _Aida_, etc., and although I've tried to rationalize these associations in different ways I have to come back to the fact that these were prominent album cover colors on my first recordings of these works. Whatever the cause, though, I enjoy associating color with music.

Rachmaninov is a deep red-purple, by the way.


----------



## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

Bach's music is always a variety of different colours, all very natural.

Beethoven's 5th symphony is crimson and 7th symphony is azure. The 8th symphony is black, the 9th is gold.

Bruckner is generally brown, Wagner is purple.


----------



## omega (Mar 13, 2014)

I tend to associate colours to almost everything, from music to the days of the week, from the books I read to my maths lessons ; when it comes to music, it matches quite often some album covers, like Woodduck. And colours often go by pair.

Rachmaninoff is a sort of green-blue with his Piano Concerti
Prokofiev's Piano Concerti are darker - most of them are greyish blue - except his fifth which is both green and a sort of golden ocre.
Haydn is definitely a sunny yellow composer, while most of Mozart's works are rather light brown, like some cherry wood.
_Turangalîla_ has a very nice mix of pale green and pink
etc.

I could go on for a certain time, but I don't know enough words in English to express all these associations...


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

omega said:


> Rachmaninoff is a sort of green-blue with his Piano Concerti
> etc.


Rachmaninoff blue-green???!!! Unthinkable! The gloves come off! Youmaninoff?


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

I don't associate pieces or composers with a particular color, but somehow I associate color with the letter "u."


----------



## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

It's interesting that you mentioned this, and a few members mentioned synesthesia. As it turns out I have this condition but it's not at all like that. People with synesthesia don't necessarily interpret only certain sounds as colors, there are a number of things going on and we experience these symptoms in everyday life as we react to moods, ideas, ambient sound, all kinds of things. There are these layers of tissue inside the brain that look kind of like caul fat, and what they are responsible for is isolating electrical impulses in the synapses between different regions of the brain. Nobody has exactly the same configuration of the stuff and folks who have FG syndrome, synesthesia, or a variety of other neurological conditions, are actually missing a portion or even a significant amount of this tissue. As a result, we make uncommon associations that aren't going to be the same even from one person to the next who has each condition because it all depends on which regions become associated.

So when I listen to music, I see all kinds of colors and it depends on the timbre, harmonic structure and texture (dense chords "look" darker), most musical devices I can't pinpoint exactly how they effect me and there doesn't seem to be a rule for, say, how a certain type of melody "looks", and whatever emotional impression I'm getting can figure in too. The same piece will "look" different each time I listen but it's generally the same. I can't really say that each composer has a color, so much as I can say the range of colors I typically see. Scriabin is darker with not a lot of tint in the colors, while Mozart is vibrant. Bach does it all to me, I can't believe how many different colors I see, and when I listen to the second movement of Dvorak's piano concerto on the other hand, there are less "perturbed" or "euphoric" colors (it goes both ways, you respond to colors with impressions) and mostly comfortable colors, pastel colors and tan colors, lots of creamy green and a purple somewhere between violet and azure.


----------



## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Some "Bliss" for this thread!


----------



## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

This is interesting, I've never thought of color association with music. I can't say that I associate any colors with music, only emotions and perhaps a program-like narrative sometimes.

If I had to choose, since I usually close my eyes when I listen to music, I think I would say everything sounds black, because that's the color of the back of my eyelids.


----------



## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)




----------



## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Well, I do have synesthesia, but it only seems to apply to numbers.

But I do associate Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach with specific colors, but they come from CDs I had as a kid. I had a blue Beethoven CD, a green Mozart CD, and a red Bach one. Now I associate those composers with those colors.


----------



## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Tristan said:


> Well, I do have synesthesia, but it only seems to apply to numbers.
> 
> But I do associate Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach with specific colors, but they come from CDs I had as a kid. I had a blue Beethoven CD, a green Mozart CD, and a red Bach one. Now I associate those composers with those colors.


That's very interesting, from what I've heard that can assist in mathematical memory? What I am familiar with is cases where each individual number gives the synesthete an impression and because of multiple associations instead of single associations recall becomes much easier.


----------



## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Hmmm...Bad associations.Back in the 70's someone spiked my drink with acid at an LSO concert. I spent the whole program rigid in my seat afraid to move in case the big coloured balloons ate me. Lived in mortal fear Andre Previn ever since.
First and last experience with drugs.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Spiked? Not your fault, then.
On a purely associative level (I don't have synaesthesia) I think Marin Marais's viol music is a rich chestnut brown.


----------



## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

Interesting question.

I've sometimes thought about this, as I am an artist (non-professional). Very often I listen to music as I paint or draw. I've always thought Delius' Sea Drift evoked the colours of the sea: Aquamarine blended with True Blue with a touch of white, whilst his Songs of Sunset evoke Tangerine and Red Orange (Although perhaps these colours are more appropriate for his Florida Suite).

I've always thought Stravinsky's Firebird evoked Scarlet Lake blended with Magenta. Recently I listened to Thomas Canning's Fantasy on a Hymn by Justin Morgan and the colours were definitely Cerulean Blue and Antique Gold. I could go on and on with examples like these, but I think you catch the drift, my choices are accociative, not synaesthetic, although perhaps there is a connexion that is subconcious.


----------



## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

This has to do with textual associations mostly: 
Das Rheingold is golden, and closer to the end it is all the colors of the rainbow.
Die Walküre is green - the color of the first leaves and grass of spring.
Siegfried is green, gold, red and brown - the colors of the forest. 
Götterdämmerung is red and black - the colors of blood, fire, smoke and night. 
Parsifal is pure blinding white - the color associated with holiness. Sometimes when I listen to the prelude, I remember those stories of near-death experiences where people saw a white light enveloping them.
Lohengrin is white and blue.


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I don't think in terms of specific colors when I hear music , but on recordings , depending on the 
recorded sound , I tend to either experience either a feeling of rainbow-like multi collors, or a
drab grayness .
It goes decades back to the LP era when I was so much younger . Columbia /CBS LPs tended to
sound dry & grayish to me , without any tonal sheen or patina,while Decca and DG ones usually
gave me that rainbow feeling . Recordings made in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw and 
the Church of Jesus Christ in Berlin had that rainbow glow, but ones recorded in Avery Fisher hall,
formerly Philharmonic hall in New York and with Szell & the Cleveland in Severance hall always
sounded so drably grayish . 
Another curious thing was the way the colors on the LP albums & the part of the LP surrounding
the grooves with the name of the composers & performers . The Columbia LPs looked drab on the who9le
and sounded drab ; the Decca & DG ones made the music sound more rainbow-like .
It's very difficult to describe these audio visual sensations .
The Nrew York Philharmonic under Bernstein on Columbia sounded coarse and drab f0or the most part ,
but recordings by the Vienna Phil.& the Concertgebouw sounded far warmer, refined and glowing .
In recent years , some f these forner Columbia recordings sounded much better on CD than on LP ,
ditto other orchestras under other conductors from the same source .l
This is a very peculiar kind of synethesia .


----------



## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

When I hear Faure's Sicilienne I always see in my mind a pale green-turquoise colour similar to Venetian green. Something like this:


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Isn't associating colors with music known as Synaesthesia? Wasn't Alexander Scriabin a pioneer in this?


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I think synaesthesia is discussed earlier in the thread. I was interested in just simple associations, though, maybe because as a lover of poetry, I like to think in symbols and metaphors.


----------



## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Triplets said:


> Isn't associating colors with music known as Synaesthesia? Wasn't Alexander Scriabin a pioneer in this?


How do you mean a 'pioneer' of synaesthesia? Unless that means listening to lushly orchestrated works to see lovely colours, as I do, there isn't really much to explore.
Synaesthesia is also more than just music/colour. It is the intertwining of any two senses.
That's what I read, anyway.


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

MoonlightSonata said:


> How do you mean a 'pioneer' of synaesthesia? Unless that means listening to lushly orchestrated works to see lovely colours, as I do, there isn't really much to explore.
> Synaesthesia is also more than just music/colour. It is the intertwining of any two senses.
> That's what I read, anyway.


 I think Scriabin actually meant to perform some of his music with a color generating machine, with an audience gathered on a mountaintop instead of a concert hall. Someone attempted a realization of this scheme about 90 years after he died.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> Do you associate a piece of music or a favourite composer with a particular colour?
> Occasionally, I do.
> 
> Obviously, there is the *Ritual Fire Dance*.
> ...


I see Bach's Brandenburg Concertos not as one particular color but more like all the colors of a beautiful rainbow working in harmony.


----------



## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

When I listen to the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata (the presto agito) I see intense but darkish colours (blues, reds, purples, black) in a sort of stained glass cylinder that's whirling round at high speed and the colours are reeling round glinting and flashing. I could attempt a painting of that...but will be hard to get it how I see it in my mind.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Joke 1: I associate Kenny G's music with _whiteness;_ and Aretha Franklin's music with _blackness._

Joke 2: I just smoked some real good hash (I'm in Colorado), and Rachmanninoff is playing. Wow, man, I'm getting all sorts of colors off this.

In this era of MP3 and earbuds, I don't see how music can really profoundly affect people enough to associate with colors, or even to experience it as a moving experience. Lo-rez music is just a cool hobby, like a video game to most people now.


----------



## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

Triplets said:


> I think Scriabin actually meant to perform some of his music with a color generating machine, with an audience gathered on a mountaintop instead of a concert hall. Someone attempted a realization of this scheme about 90 years after he died.


Yes, I read about that...and wondered if I was reading it right :lol: it sounded kind of bizarre. From wiki:

"In 1909 he returned to Russia permanently, where he continued to compose, working on increasingly grandiose projects. For some time before his death he had planned a multi-media work to be performed in the Himalaya Mountains, that would cause a so-called "armageddon", "a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world".[12] Scriabin left only sketches for this piece, Mysterium, although a preliminary part, named L'acte préalable ("Preparatory Action") was eventually made into a performable version by Alexander Nemtin..."


----------



## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

And there was also the clavier a lumieres






which he created, as Triplets said. This was apparently a keyboard of coloured lights where the notes had a specific coloured light according to his synaesthesia.


----------

