Pranjal Arts

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The Colors Of Sound

Believe it or not! You can look at shapes while listening to a certain type of music. This is known as synesthesia. You may also see a hue when you hear a word or a name. Synesthesia is a fancy term for when one of your senses is experienced through another. For example, you might see green when you hear the name "Rashmi." You might get a taste of citrus fruit if you read the word "circus". It will not hurt your health and does not indicate that you are mentally sick. According to certain studies, persons who have it, do better on memory and IQ tests than those who do not. While it may appear to be a mere fiction, there is evidence that it is a real condition.

Alexander Scriabin:

Alexander Scriabin was a pianist and composer from Russia. He is well-known for being a synesthete, but whether or not he had chromesthesia is a source of debate. The integration of coloured light into a symphonic composition, according to Scriabin, would operate as a "strong psychological resonator for the listener." That is why, for his color-symphony Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, he devised the clavier à lumières.

Scriabin's sound-to-color associations:


Note Color

C Red

G Orange-pink

D Yellow

A Green

E Whitish-blue

B Similar to E

F♯ Blue, bright

D♭ Violet

A♭ Purplish-violet

E♭ Steel color with metallic sheen

B♭ Similar to E flat

F Red, dark

White Noise:

When shown as a linear function of frequency, white noise is a signal that has a flat frequency spectrum. Since both intervals are 20 Hz wide, a white noise audio signal with frequencies between 40 and 60 Hz has the same amount of sound strength as a signal with frequencies between 400 and 420 Hz.

WHITE NOISE