I see the sound, I hear the color

I see the sound, I hear the color

"... music gives mood, and it is necessary to recreate the thought and image on it"

ON. Rimsky-Korsakov

The world of art is full of mysteries and unusual phenomena that excite the minds of many studies. One of them is the ability to see sounds.

From sound to meaning

Even in ancient India, the wise men spoke of the inseparable connection between music and color, the same was confirmed by Aristotle, arguing that the ratio of sounds is like musical sounds. The Pythagoreans also took into account this relationship, their spectrum colors were equal to seven tones, and Newton was also interested in this question. In the 17th century, monk L. Castel decided to construct a color harpsichord, a little later the same idea was picked up by the Russian composer A. Scriabin.

The study of sound engaged German physicist Ernest Hladni. He owns many discoveries in the field of physics and acoustics. With the help of scientific experiments with Chladni figures on the surface of an oscillating plate, he proved the interrelation of these two concepts and showed how you can see music.

Another researcher who studied this issue is philologist A.P. Zhuravlev. Who actively dealt with the question of the relationship between color and sound in verses and proved that sounds can really produce images. So, he came to the conclusion that vowel sounds in verses symbolize color. The French linguist K. Nirop and A. Rambo were also interested in this in their time.

Music - color

We will consider in more detail a unique phenomenon - color hearing, it should be distinguished from simple figurative thinking. This is a rare manifestation of synesthesia - synopsy. It is known that N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, A.N. Scriabin, B.V. Afanasyev, O. Messiaen and M. Kener. Studies of this phenomenon were carried out both in the USSR and abroad. For example, the French psychologist who studied this question identifies three versions of the origin of color hearing: embryological, physiological, and psychological.

Interestingly, people endowed with synopsy are able to see in this way not every key and not every sound, and each of them has its own, individual color. For example, A.N. Scriabin saw the keys in C major, F major and G major, like red and orange-pink, the rest of the colors he drew along a fifth circle. N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov the same tonalities were white, bright green and light brown. B. Asafiev describes the tonality of G major as emerald lawns after rain. E major, on the contrary, is presented in all in the same blue hues.

Trying to convey to his listeners his vision of sounds, A. Scriabin wrote the symphonic poem "Prometheus", in the score of which a line of light is written in a separate line. A composition N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov is often called "sound painting." So, for pictures of the sea in his operas "Sadko", "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", "The Golden Cockerel" he uses the tonality of E major. In The Snow Maiden, the main character is also accompanied by this tonality, which is then changed to a warmer D flat major in the melting scene.

Development of color hearing

The development of color associations at one time was carried out by musicologist V. B. Brainin. He even developed his own system dedicated to these interconnections and successfully practiced it. Of course, color hearing, as already noted, is quite a rare phenomenon, leaving some questions still open. It is much easier to develop imaginative associations that arise when listening to certain compositions. And each of us will have this perception purely individually.

Listen to the classics, attend concerts of symphonic music and how to know, perhaps for you the amazing world of sounds shines with its bright colors.