Alternative
names could be musical instrument-colour and musical instrument-shape
Subtypes of
auditory-visual synesthesia
Timbre-colour is considered a type of chromesthesia, which is a general name given to any type of synesthesia where the inducer is sound or music and the concurrent is (or includes) colour. Timbre-shape is considered a type of chromesthesia if the shapes have colour. If they are colourless or monochrome it is not.
As with all visual synesthesias, some people with timbre-colour perceive their photisms externally, as though on a screen in front of them (“projector synesthetes”) while others – the majority – see them in the mind’s eye or simply receive a strong impression of the colour or other visual aspects (“associator synesthetes”).
The visual
concurrents are consistent, with the same sound evoking the same colour, shape,
movement etc., but idiosyncratic, i.e. different for each synesthete.
Timbre-colour
On listening to music, the characteristic sound of each instrument produces a different synesthetic colour. The colour impressions can exist without having any particular shape, with one colour simply giving way to another or the colours coexisting to form a kind of chromatic “landscape” when several different instruments are played together. For people with this type of synesthesia, the instrument usually has one main colour, its hue varying according to pitch, so it may be lighter when the instrument makes a higher-pitched sound or darker when it makes a lower-pitched sound, for example, or nuanced with another colour.
Here are some descriptions written by people with timbre-colour synesthesia:
“The colors don't remain constant across an instrument's tessitura--they get darker or lighter or inch toward other colors (ex. clarinet is much more pinkish in its high range).”
“Although
distorted electric guitars are a really dark grey, almost black, organs are
blue, and synths are orange for me.
Tambourines
are yellow though, although my yellow is more of a tan brown yellow.”
A historical case of timbre-colour in an eighteenth century synesthete
In the book L’Audition Colorée, written by Ferdinand Suárez de Mendoza in the late 19th century, the author lists the colours evoked by the sounds of different musical instruments for the magistrate and painter Salomon Landoit, cited in a book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1810 which in turn quoted Landoit’s biography, published in 1786 by Léonard Hoffmann.
The sound of each instrument produces the visual impression of a particular shape: geometric figures, lines, squiggles, blocks or splashes, etc.). It can also have colour, texture, size, position and movement, although it does not necessarily have any of these additional characteristics.
This type of synesthesia is similar to the general sounds-vision type, and they could even be considered the same thing, although the term timbre is more often used in relation to music.
The
accordion is a chunky diagonal zig-zag crossing the centre/lower part of the
image, normally grey.
The harp is
a series of little spheres that can either be round or oval, depending on the
exact sound, and they’re white.
Cymbals are
always top left and they travel through the air like a kind of spray. They’re
silver in colour.
Percussion:
little ticks, circles, dots, things like that. Silver starbursts falling down
from the top, on the right.
And the
best thing of all is the bass drum. Big round balls that roll all around the
bottom part of the image.”
(Source:
Pau 365, my own experience)
How a
painter uses timbre-colour synesthesia to create a work of art
Artist Ninghui Xiong has timbre-colour, among other types of synesthesia. The unique sounds of
the different instruments and the tempo of the music inspire him in his use of
colour and form.
Go to the page on auditory-visual synesthesia in general
Go to the page on musical synesthesias (with links to all the different types)
Go to the page on general sounds-vision
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