One of the best tools for mental trips is music. It’s still not given the due importance to it. Among millions of other things, music has healing abilities; it’s more than just sound sequences.

A statistic says that, in the future, the importance given to music power (unknown in almost all aspects nowadays) will be so influential that it will be as important as instruction in reading and writing, in schools. This is just to show you how music is important for your mental healthiness. It is not only about reading scores or playing an instrument, but most importantly about knowing how to "understand" the music essence - among many things seeing its colors and feeling its smells.

Seeing the colors of music can be very pleasurable. It can be said that it's a language: the language of musical colors. Each song has its own aura, a musical vibration that will produce a specific colored vibe. These colors are resulted from the mood of the song, reflecting their writer's emotions; by the way, most album covers include the colors of the main songs - Make a test! Is it a coincidence or a result of the unconsciousness?...

THERAPY OF MUSICAL COLORS

The blend of sound and colors is the ultimate way to get into a different emotional state, opening other doors of perceptions, and you can even improve or heal stress, depression and anxiety.

It all happens in the brain, so the best thing to do is to close your eyes and flood those colors in your head while you listen to the songs.

(You can also feel the smell of music. Some songs have a very specific smell, which might not even exist in nature. Others remind perfumes and incenses).

 

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Does music have more attributes than sound?

Yes, it's also possible to see its colors, smell its scents, feel its density and temperature. This happens by what is called Synesthesia.

What is Synesthesia?

Synesthesia means fusion of sensations. It can be considered the opposite of anesthesia (lack of sensibility), although it's not totally understood by neurology. In general, synesthesics combine two of the five traditional senses, with clear rules: one sound will always provoke the same red rays in a person.

Nobody knows for sure what happens in a synesthesic's brain. The most common form of Synesthesia is when people see or listen to words in colors. This condition affects about one in every 25,000 people and is more easily found on women. There are more left-handed people among synesthesics, but the reason for this is not clear. Generally synesthesics have an extraordinary memory, and a tendency to have unusual 'psychic' experiences. On the other hand, they are fond of having difficulties with mathematics and space orientation.

Actually, we are all synesthesics in some degree, as when it happens while we listen to certain songs that were forgotten on our mind's basement; on events like this, there isn't one who will not feel scents, tastes, heat or coldness, as if the past had been entirely reconstructed and perceived as a result of different sensations which stimulus is consigned to only one of our senses. For songs, only audition should respond if there wasn't this small extent of synesthesia.

How many colors are generally projected from a song?

I'll answer this one by saying how I see the colors in Colortronic: there are basically three - the color theme, appearing all over the song, and the secondary and third colors, which can also be projected from the beginning to the end of the song or only in some parts. Sometimes I will also feel other colors, just appearing in details of the song.

I also feel other colors besides the ones indicated for the songs, am I wrong?

All songs show at least one of the three primary colors, which are RED, YELLOW and BLUE (red, a hot color, denotes agressivity, heat, energy and is also associate to sexually oriented songs; yellow is also a hot color, but it's more kind of smooth; blue, a cold color, is associated to feelings like melancholy and peace). A song which remembers Nature, for example, will be GREEN (BLUE + YELLOW), so, if you see the colors blue or yellow in a green song, it's OK. There is no problem either felling attracted to ORANGE in an predominantly RED or YELLOW song, for example.

It's also possible that you just imagined any color and started to think that it belongs to this song, and actually this is OK, you can give paint any colors you want, but have in mind that there are colors that really have more relationship with a song than other colors. It's easy to understand that the colors that can be seen in a song really belong to it, in most cases. Like, a person will hardly see the color pink in a heavy metal song, because this color doesn't really appear too much in this genre. But we must bear in mind that if someone is depressed, stressed, without concentration, he is likely not to suceed on identifying the colors of music and maybe will color the song with a dark or distorted nuance. So, never believe in colors that you felt in a song while you were depressed.

Is there any Table which associates the colors with the music characteristics?

Yes, the Table below was developed by me and serves as a guide to decipher the colors of each song according to its characteristics; of course more things should be taken in consideration, after all music is one of the most complex forms of art that exists, but the Table serves as a basic guide:

RED	passion; agitation; love; excitement
DARK RED	anger; rebellion; skepticism
PINK	love; purity; sweetness; naïve
ORANGE	acid; psychedelic; agitation
YELLOW	intelect; serene; joy; beach
GREEN	nature; refreshing; optimism; immaturity
BLUE	melancholy; memory; peace; sadness; freshness; sky
VIOLET	well-being; ecstasy; spirituality
PURPLE	love; sadness; melancholy
BROWN	wood; soil; tribal
GOLDEN	spirituality; sun
SILVER	night; moon; industrial
GRAY	sadness; skepticism; depression; coldness

What difference does it make to know the colors of a song? What does this add to me?

Cromotherapy allied to music is a rich source for healing. It evokes strong emotions. It's a kind of meditation which let's us visualize the soul of the song. It shows us its emotions and can bring benefits for the health. Kinda like the same as having a delicious lunch and adding more salt so that it will be even more appetizing. The colors work as a condiment. They are like the lyrics, which function is (generally) to transmit messages in a song. So, the colors also have something to say. They are also the "lyrics" of a song!

Which other artists have already used the colors allied to music?

Mozart and four other European composers from the beginning of the 20th century have in their way: Wassily Kandinsky, Alexander Scriabin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

Some scientists like Isaac Newton linked each musical note to a specific color. Do you make this theory as a base?

The colors come through my Synesthesia, broaching the colors by their psychological and emotional aspect. I don't make as a base the Table that associates each note to a color, because each song has hundreds of notes, and to represent graphically each single note would result in a confusing visual pollution. Yet, there are certain instruments that always sound in a certain coloring, no matter which note is being executed. The sound of a siren, for example, presents the color red for practically everyone, although not all sirens play the same notes.

What results in a song's coloring is the chaining of notes, their tone, velocity, rhythm... These will determine the nuance of a song. For example, imagine a pink pop song singed by girls; now imagine a punk-rock band making a cover for this song: it will be reddish, even though the notes are the same. Now imagine a reggae band playing a reggae cover for the same song: it will feel greenish. So, what determines the colorings aren't the notes themselves, but the mood, the climate and landscape of the song.

Do all songs have colors? Are there uncolored songs?

Sound is vibration, and each vibration has a color, so all songs have colors, but if you don't like a song you will hardly see colors on it.

Do I need to use drugs to see the colors of music?

Some of them can actually turn the brain more sensible to sound and colors, but there is the risk of hallucination, so you'd better not take any drugs.

Do you always see colors when you listen to music?

Not always, many times I just don't think about colors, I think of emotions and other things, I don't keep myself imprisoned only to colors.

When did you start associating sound and colors?

I always associated colors and music, but I never noticed it consciously before reading about Synesthesia, that's when I started to pay more attention to the subject.

Are there colors which prevail in certain genres?

In my synesthesia, jazz shows between golden and yellow as the predominant colors. In hardcore there is a lot of red, in drum'n'bass I see lots of brown, and I feel darkwave/gothic as predominantly dark red and purple.

I have a question that is not listed on this FAQ!

Send your question to me BY E-MAIL and I will answer it.

Denis Kandle