Beach, Amy   (1867-1944).  American pianist and composer.

    It turns out that the 19th-century American classical composer Amy Beach
    had both perfect pitch and a set of colors for musical keys.  Here are two
    quotes from biographies:

    From Jeanell Wise Brown, *Amy Beach and her chamber music: biography,
    documents, style* (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994), p. 16:

       "Other interesting stories about Amy's musical personality and her
       astounding abilities as a prodigy are recounted in almost all previous
       biographical writings.  One such story is Amy's association of certain
       colors with certain keys.  For instance, Amy might ask her mother to
       play the 'purple music' or the 'green music.'  The most popular story,
       however, seems to be the one about Amy's going on a trip to California
       and notating on staff paper the exact pitches of bird calls she heard."

       References are to letters in the Crawford Collection, Library of
       Congress.

    From Walter S. Jenkins, *The remarkable Mrs. Beach, American composer*
    (Warren, Mich.: Harmonie Park Press, 1994), pp. 5-6:

       "Amy's mother encouraged her to relate melodies to the colors blue,
       pink, or purple, but before long Amy had a wider range of colors, which
       she associated with certain major keys.  Thus C was white, F-sharp
       black, E yellow, G red, A green, A-flat blue, D-flat violet or purple,
       and E-flat pink.  Until the end of her life she associated these colors
       with those keys."

   Reference is an interview of Beach by George Y. Loveridge in the
   Providence Journal, Dec. 4, 1937, p. 5.

Day, Sean  A fairly unknown composer, who has written few works in his spare, hobby
     time.    Sean Day synesthetically "sees" colors corresponding to musical timbres; each instrument has its
     specific color .

     Click HERE to hear one of his compositions, Absence , a duet for flute and cello.  For Sean Day, flutes are synesthetically silvery white flashes, cellos are dark cherry wood with green flecks.

De Caprio, Tony         Jazz guitarist.  "I am able to see all twelve tones in their respective colors".
 

            Motown artist .  His song "What do you want to make those eyes at me for?" was a #1 hit in the U.K. in
                    1959-1960.
 

Gittleman, Harley           American composer.

Jones, Elvin

Published on Sunday, May 23, 2004
Section: ARTS & SOCIETY     Page: 12F
Edition: FINAL
© 2004 The Baltimore Sun
 

Drummer Elvin Jones was the great propelling force that drove the John Coltrane quartet into vast new territories of jazz, territories that new generations of musicians are still exploring .  He was a drummer of inexhaustible energy - physically, emotionally and spiritually - which was a very good thing indeed, because Coltrane could play for hours, wringing the last scrap of meaning from a musical idea. Jones played with Coltrane from 1960 to 1966, an extraordinarily fertile time for jazz music.

He said playing with Coltrane was like "a young boy going to the circus and stopping at the stand selling cotton candy and ice cream cones."
   He was still playing with scarcely diminished enthusiasm when he died Tuesday at the age of 76. During these last few months of failing health, he took an oxygen tank on stage with him when he played. He left a schedule of bookings unfulfilled, and unfulfillable.
   "Playing is not something I do at night," he once said. "It's my function in life."
   To praise Jones and Coltrane is not to disrespect McCoy Tyner, the quartet's pianist, or Jimmy Garrison, its bass player. The quartet came together with rare collective force. They rank in seminal influence with Louis Armstrong's Hot Five, the bebop bands of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk, and the post-bop quintets of Miles Davis, with Coltrane in one and Wayne Shorter in the other.
   "That feeling is always there," Jones once told a Downbeat magazine interviewer. "If you want to call it jazz, you can call it jazz. Anything you want to call it, but it's a spirit ... a  cohesion ... joint effort."
   You can hear that spirit expressed in pieces as varied as My Favorite Things, where the quartet transforms a pop song into art, or A Love Supreme, one of the great spiritual works in jazz.
   Jones played with dynamic power, often setting rhythm upon rhythm, pushing and pulling the music along in an interaction with other musicians that some have called a circle of sound. His drumming was constantly active, a sort of continuous solo without losing rhythmic clarity, adding punctuations and annotations and a flow of inspiration to both solos and ensemble playing.
   "I can see forms and shapes in my mind when I solo, just as a painter can see forms and shapes when he starts a painting," he told Whitney Balliett, the New Yorker writer. "And I can see different colors. My cymbals will be one color and my snare another color and my tom-toms each a different color. I mix these colors up, making constant movement.
   "Drums suggest movement," he said, "a conscious, constant shifting of sounds and levels of sound. My drumming can shade from a whisper to a thunder. I'm not conscious of the length of my solos, which I've been told have run up to half an hour. When you develop a certain pattern, you stay with it until it's finished."
   Jones was born in Detroit, the youngest child in a family of 10. His brother, Thad, a trumpet and flugelhorn player who died in 1986, led a much-acclaimed band with drummer Mel Lewis that played for more than 20 years at the Village Vanguard, the hallowed New York jazz sanctuary. Hank Jones, now nearly 86, remains one of the great jazz pianists.
   Elvin was once asked what his brothers thought of his music: "I don't know," he replied. "They just love me. I'm the baby."
 

Katchè, Manu       Has performed with Sting, Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds, Joe Satriani, Tori Amos, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, among others.

Ligeti, György :     (born 1923) contemporary Hungarian composer.  Ligeti  is probably best known to the wider world for his early  works, some of which were 'borrowed' by Stanley Kubrick  for the soundtrack of "2001".

        "I am inclined to synaesthetic perception.  I associate sounds with colours and shapes.  Like Rimbaud [sic; Rimbaud was not a true synesthete],
        I feel that all letters have a colour."
        "Major chords are red or pink, minor chords are somewhere between green and brown.  I do not have perfect pitch, so when I say that C minor
        has a rusty red-brown colour and D minor is brown this does not come from the pitch but from the letters C and D.  I think it must go back to my
        childhood.  I find, for instance, that numbers also have colours; 1 is steely grey, 2 is orange, 5 is green.  At some point these associations must
        have got fixed, perhaps I saw the green number 5 on a stamp or on a shop sign.  But there must be some collective associations too.  For most
        people the sound of a trumpet is probably yellow although I find it red because of its shrillness" (Ligeti 1978/1983: 58).

A strange twist: Ligeti studied and taught (1950 - 1956) at the Franz Liszt [another true synesthete -- see below] Academy in Budapest.

Liszt, Franz (1811 -1886)

"When Liszt first began as Kapellmeister in Weimar (1842), it astonished the orchestra that he said: 'O please, gentlemen, a little bluer, if you please!  This tone type requires it!'  Or: 'That is a deep violet, please, depend on it!  Not so rose!'  First the orchestra believed Liszt just joked; more later they got accustomed to the fact that the great musician seemed to see colors there, where there were only tones" (quoted from an anonymous article in the Neuen Berliner Musikzeitung (29 August, 1895); quoted in Mahling 1926: 230) (my translation).

Long, Joseph       Scottish concert pianist.

Mayer, John      Winner of the 2003 Grammy Award for "Best Male Pop Vocalist".

McDonald, Margaret      Scottish mezzo-soprano operatic singer.

Messiaen, Olivier     (1908 - 1992)   Composer Olivier Messiaen, who flourished in the 1940's, was self-admittedly a synesthete, as is quite well detailed in his own writings and in interviews (see Samuel 1994 (1986)).  Many of his compositions, such as Oiseaux Exotiques, L'ascension, and Couleurs de la cite celeste, are directly based upon his, in a sense, trying to "produce pictures" via sound, writing specific notes to produce specific color sequences and blends.

Nelson, Sam.  Vocalist and programmer for the rock band H is Orange.

Paull, Jennifer

        Jennifer Paull describes herself as an interpreter of music and words, and a synaesthete. She has spent her career as an internally known musician, championing the rare and beautiful oboe d'amore, the alto oboe. She remains the only soloist in the world exclusively dedicated to its cause. Her ensemble, "The Amoris Consort", mixes the five colours of the instrumental timbres of the oboe family, including two other rare members apart from her own, the musette and the bass oboe. For her, timbre equates to colour, and musical form to visible, architectural shapes.

Finding that in whichever country she presented her instrument inevitably involved lecturing and writing, the performance of music slowly became too limiting for her canvass. She has turned increasingly to writing, the investigation of colour (as a tool, inspiration and healer), translating (breaking through invisible walls), and devising artistic dimensions and events.

Lecturing in three languages, English, French and Music, she freely admits that all the Arts and many languages influence her palette directly and indirectly. Fascinated by travel, history, and synaesthesia (her "secret weapon"), she freely admits to a certain addiction to interior design, precious stones, intellectual sleuthing, and bonne cuisine (not necessarily in that order).

Ms. Paull established her own publishing company, Amoris International, in the United States. On its web site, her publications and research can be investigated (and purchased), her CD's and those of her ensemble tasted in sound clip illustration, her critics read and her writings explored.

http://www.amoris.com

Knowing that she was a language synaesthete, seeing letters and numbers in colour, she has broadened her work to include therapy for synaesthesia overload and word-blindness with successful results.

Musical performance ceased being her ultimate goal as the colours of words and the invisible barriers of translation into different art forms and languages were encouraged by her increasing awareness and confidence in her condition. She simply follows where it leads. Giving synaesthesia free rein has made the once musician and publisher into a published writer and a translator. Colours, textures and feelings triggered by the awareness of her varying forms of synaesthesia, have increased as she accepted its omnipresent dimension as her path to explore. It touches her world in everything she does from choice of the colour of her children's names, to the perfume and feel of musical keys,the sounds of paintings and the choreography of poetry.

"I chose my children's names by colour.  My son's are Patrick and Pascal (P is celestial blue and a is pale green) and my daughters are Nathalie and Nadia ( N is this sunset or dawn pink).  My name is Jennifer (both the n's in there) Paull; the capital P makes up the 'weight' of 2 smaller ones."

Perlman, Itzhak 

Raff, Joachim

     In 1855, the composer Joachim Raff "declared that the sounds of instruments produced color impressions of various kinds.  Thus the sound of a flute produced the sensation of intense azure blue; of the hautboy [oboe], yellow; cornet, green; trumpet, scarlet; the French horn, purple; and the flageolet [bassoon], grey.  The clearest and most distinct shades were those evoked by the high notes" ( Krohn 1892 : 22).  It is unknown whether Raff was a synaesthete; he may well have been, but this small set of colored timbres does not provide enough information, without more direct claims as to where the correspondences originate from.  Note once again here the association of trumpets with a shade of red (scarlet).

Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai 

    Rimsky-Korsakov had synaesthetically colored musical keys:
 
 

This is according to an article in the Russian press,

    Yastrebtsev V. On N.A.Rimsky-Korsakov's color sound- contemplation. - Russkaya muzykalnaya gazeta,
            1908, N 39-40, p.842×845 (in Russian),

cited by Bulat Galeyev (1999).

Saradzhev [Saradzhian], Konstantin (b Derbent, 8 Oct 1877; d Erevan, 22July 1954).  Armenian conductor and violinist.  He graduated from Hrimaly's violin class at the Moscow Conservatory in 1898, then taught the violin at the Moscow Synodal School and gave solo recitals.  In 1900 he had lessons with Sevcik in Prague.  From 1901 he was conductor of the Moscow Opera Lovers' Club and at the same time he formed a string quartet.  Having decided to devote himself to conducting, he studied with Nikisch in Leipzig (1904-8).  After his return to Moscow, he conducted the Sokolniki summer symphony concerts in 1908 and 1910-11.  He proved to be a persuasive advocate of new music by young composers; he conducted the first performances of Myaskovsky's symphonic poem 'Silence' and of Prokofiev's 'Autumn Sketches' and Piano Concerto no. 1 (with the composer as soloist).  In 1909 Saradzhev was one of the founders of the Evenings of Contemporary Music, and in 1923 he organized the chamber concerts of the Association for Contemporary Music.  Saradzhev had an excellent conducting technique, with a clear beat, and the ability to imbue the orchestra with his own artistic ideals.  He was professor of the conducting class at Moscow Conservatory (1922-35) and then returned to Armenia as musical director and principal conductor of the Erevan Opera and Ballet Theatre.  As principal conductor of the Armenia Philharmonia (1941-4) he popularized the works of young Armenian composers.  From 1939 to his death he was director of Ereven Conservatory, where he taught the orchestra, opera and conducting classes.  He was made a People's Artist of the Armenian SSR in 1945; a volume of his collected articles and reminiscences was published in Moscow in 1962.

["Hrimaly" and "Sevcik" with Easteuropean letters, JJ]

I. M. Yampol'sky, in: Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of
Music and Musicians, London 1980, Vol. 16, p. 495.

Sibelius, Jean           (1865 - 1957)

"For him there existed a strange, mysterious connection between sound and color, between the most secret perceptions of the eye and ear. Everything he saw produced a corresponding impression on his ear - every impression of sound was transferred and fixed as color on the retina of his eye and thence to his memory.  And this he thought as natural, with as good reason as those who did not possess this faculty called him crazy or affectedly original.
    "For this reason he only spoke of this in the strictest confidence and under a pledge of silencce.  'For otherwise they will make fun of me!'" (Adolf Paul (1890), as quoted in Ekman 1938: 41-42).

Torke, Michael       Definitely a synesthete, reporting that one of his types is colored time units (days of the week, years, and such).
 

Van Halen, Eddie --      Rock guitar player.
                                                         (Photo: Mike Braithwaite)
 

Wiese, Henrik        Colored muisic, colored letters.
 
 

Wolfe, Ben  -- Jazz bass player.
 
 

Wonder, Stevie       'Nuff said.  You know who he is.

Pseudo-Synesthete Composers & Musicians:
 
 

Bliss, Sir Arthur  ---   Sir Arthur Bliss, who wrote his Colour Symphony in 1922, was not a synesthete.  He was simply yet another influenced by the ideas of "color music", although, for him, it did not come with the trappings of mystic religions, but, rather, with British traditions.  The symphony features four movements: Purple; Red; Blue; and Green.  Bliss based this work upon the symbolism generally associated with the colors in traditional English heraldry, along the following lines: " Purple - Amethysts, Pageantry, Royalty - and Death; Red - Rubies, Wine, Furnaces, Magic, _ ; Blue - Sapphires, Deep Water, Skies, Loyalty, Melancholy ; Green - Emeralds, Hope, Youth, Joy, Spring, and Victory " (Dannatt 1991).

The Bobs     Richard Bob Greene co-wrote the song Synaesthesia , on the Shut Up and Sing album.  Greene states, "Sorry to say that none of us is naturally synaesthetic.  I just read an article in some scientific journal and found it intriguing and made up the rest of the lyrics from there."

Davis, Miles ---     In 1989, Miles Davis presented his album, Aura , which is a suite of 10 modern jazz pieces each set upon a color.  Aura was composed by Palle Mikkelborg, who was not a synesthete.  The composer was aware of the concept of synesthesia, but only slightly.  The correspondences made between the musical styles and particular colors is basically based upon western-European - and more so, on North American - culture.  Furthermore, the associations are fairly "loose"; the colors are arranged in a certain sequence, and the musical pieces of the suite flow in a certain arrangement, but there is not strong attempt to have the two sequences correspond.

Gubaidulina, Sofia         Russian composer.  Composed the following:
 

Alleluja (1990)
Duration: 35'
for large orchestra, organ, mixed chorus and boy's voice
vo; SATB chorus; 2+pic+afl.22+Ebcl+bcl.2+cbn/4331/
6perc/2hp.cel.hpd(amp).2pf.org/str (16.16.12.12.8); color keyboard (opt)

László, Alexander (1895 - 1970) -- Hungarian musician and composer, born 22 Nov., 1895.  Composed a small set of Lichtmusik (light-music) pieces, including Eleven preludes (opus 10). Eleven preludes had the following scheme:

1. ultramarine; 2. yellow; 3. violet; 4. leaf-green; 5. grey; 6. red; 7. ice-blue; 8. white; 9. sea-green; 10. cress; 11. black.

[Click on the number to hear the corresponding piece.]
[Movement 10 - cress segues directly into movement 11 - black.]

Ox, Jack, & Dave Britton -- THE 21ST CENTURY VIRTUAL REALITY COLOR ORGAN

Scriabin, Alexander 

Alexander Scriabin probably was not a synesthete, but, rather, was highly influenced by the French and Russian salon fashions.  Most noticeably, Scriabin seems to have been strongly influenced by the writings and talks of the Russian mystic, Helena P. Blavatsky, founder of The Theosophical Society and author of such works as Isis Unvieled and The Secret Doctrine (see Dann 1998).  The synesthetic motifs found in Scriabin's compositions - most noticeably in Prometheus, composed in 1911 - are developed off of ideas from Newton, and follow a basic mathematical musical algorithm, called a circle of fifths (see Galeyev 1987; Dann 1998; and, of course, Scriabin 1995 (1911)).  The score of Prometheus contains a line designated "Luce"; this was for a light organ, playing two lines: one to correspond to Scriabin's concepts of the "correct" colors for each musical key, as he modulated from key to key; the other, to counter the first line's colors.  Scriabin and others were unable to realize a light-music performance of Prometheus until its premier performance in New York, in 1915, where, rather than using a color organ, colored light was projected onto a screen set above the orchestra performers' heads.
 

    Scriabin's system of colored musical keys:
 
 
 

             Blavatsky's paradigm:
 
 

Composed by Sean Day                                                            Up-dated 26.Jan.2005

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