The Color of Sound

I love color. Actually, I like not-color too. In photography I get a chance to play with color in some photographs and not-color when I shoot in black and white. The interplay and tension and emotions conveyed by the use of color are powerful tools in the process of visual communication.

I also like music. I think these things are on my mind as I just got back from a rehearsal for The Doormen, a guys double quartet that performs up here a couple of times a month at various church and community events. It has been great to be regularly involved with music again. While singing tonight, I could imagine that different colors went with different sounds in the music. Some were more subdued.

Others were much more vibrant.

What really gets me, though, is how others have gifts of which I can only imagine. There are stories of the great composers writing entire movements without ever playing a note. They had all the knowledge and sound and vision perfectly present in their minds. In like fashion, there are artists who can create a graphic of amazing power as quickly as their hands can fashion it. And others are at an almost spiritual level.

It has taken years for me to understand that I don't understand, but Jen sees the color of sound. I don't have this gift, so I can't fully explain. What I do know is that I'm not talking about color and sound association. If I listen to Mozart's Requiem I can correlate the sound to dark, somber colors. That's not it. Instead it has something to do with the sound waves becoming visible as variables in the color spectrum. She can actually see the actual color the sound makes. Stuff like that really humbles me. This creation is so much more complex than I will ever know.