Seeing Colors In Music

When my dad became terminally ill in 2013, I turned to art and started painting. I had no ambition to become an artist; it was simply something I could do to take my mind off the stress of my father’s illness.

I started off blending and playing with colors, and eventually branched out to paint pictures that I soon discovered many people found appealing. When I became better at it, I started to incorporate music into what I was painting.

I would pick a song and play it on repeat to inspire me, until I was done with the painting. It was as if I was channeling the lyrics and melodies into the artwork. The music told the story of the art I was creating. I would then name the painting after that particular song and include the lyrics on the back of the canvas.

I also developed a new fascination with music and singing at that time. In time I began putting my art projects to one side, and instead began to focus on learning to sing. I continued the singing after my father passed away, and I found so much personal healing in it.

I didn’t realize how alive music really is and how intertwined my art would become with my singing. When I sing, I ‘see’ the lyrics as if they are being painted on a blank canvas in my mind’s eye. The main verses of the songs will often become large flowers, and the chorus and melodies will fill in the areas around the flowers with leaves and scrolled vines.

I learned recently that there is a scientific term for seeing colors and patterns when hearing music.  It is a type of synesthesia known as chromaesthesia. Synesthesia is a perception phenomenon in which one experiences things through your senses in an unusual way. For example, a synesthete might experience a sound as a color, a word as a shape, or a number as a taste or smell. The person’s sensory perceptions are somehow combined or unified, almost like ‘wires that are crossed.’

More in-depth studies on synesthesia will help us understand how the brain processes information, presenting an opportunity for us to see the world through different-coloured lenses ~ Michelle Tan

Some experts believe that synesthesia may be associated with psychic ability, especially clairvoyance. A 2012 study at the University of Granada in Spain found that many psychic healers who report the ability to see the aura of their patients are actually synesthetes.

Chromesthesia is sound-to-color synesthesia is a type of synesthesia in which sounds evoke the perception of colors, shapes and movement. The auditory cortex in the brain, where sound and music are processed, is in close proximity to the occipital nerve, where the brain recognizes colors and shapes. In the brain of a chromesthete these areas of the brain somehow overlap.

Several well-known artists and musicians, such as Pharrell Williams, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, and Mary J. Blige are said to have this unusual cognitive ability. In a 2015 article published in the The Psychologist, researcher Jack Dutton writes that people with chromaesthesia are more likely to play a musical instrument, as well as engage in other artistic pursuits. I did play the clarinet as I was growing up. Could it be that certain with innate artistic and musical abilities are associated with this neurological marker?

But could this be something that anyone could learn to do? Before learning to paint and channel music, I don’t remember ever having the ability to ‘see’ music in my mind. According to the British Psychological Society, studies have in fact found it may be “possible to teach certain aspects of the condition and this could have potential benefits for memory and creativity, as well as being used to reduce the effects of disorders such as autism, dyslexia and ADHD.” A 2014 study from the University of Sussex reviewed a study from 1944 where researchers also taught test subjects how to create sound-color synesthesia.

When I’m composing, in my head I can imagine what colours I would see if I was to play it…While I’m writing I imagine the colours I see – and when I finally hear it, I am amazed ~ Daniel McBride

Given my own experience, I do feel it is possible that it can be developed further. I propose that using music and art together could bring out someone’s artistic abilities that otherwise might stay buried.

Before my father became ill, I never thought of picking up a paintbrush and channeling music through it.  It has been an extraordinary experience that I hope I will continue to develop in other forms of art I am now working on. I encourage anyone that is interested in art to try working with music as they connect with their art. I do feel as time passes, you will see them come together beautifully.