

































Abstract: Music-color synesthesia is a phenomenon in which the sensation of color is experienced when perceiving 
music. !is paper chronicles the development of the concept of music-color synesthesia, from theorized connections 
between color and music to the establishment of the study of synesthesia as a science. It also details the leading 
theories on the cause of synesthesia itself and various forms of expression of music-color synesthesia. A case study 
by the author on her own experience with music-color synesthesia is included, proposing ideas for further areas of 
research in this "eld.

Aisthesis      Volume 13,  202236

Music-Color Synesthesia: A Historical and Scienti!c 
Overview

by Vanessa Hawkins

 A blind man who had long attempted to 
understand light and colors boasted one day that he 
now knew the meaning of the color scarlet. His friend, 
in doubt, asked him what scarlet was, and the blind 
man replied, “It was like the sound of a trumpet”1. !e 
composer and pianist Franz Liszt notoriously asked 
an orchestra to perform sections of his compositions 
“bluer,” or “not so rose,”2 and Pharrell Williams 
knows when a song is in the correct key if it “matches 
the same color.”3 !ese people come from vastly 
di#erent backgrounds and time periods, but they all 
share a condition known as music-color synesthesia. 
Synesthesia is a neurological anomaly in which 
perception of one stimulus results in both the usual 
sensation and an additional sensation not normally 

1 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 
(London: A. Churchill and A. Manship, 1721), 29, Google 
Play Books. 
$ Friedrich Mahling, “Das Problem der ‘Audition colorée’: 
eine historisch-kritische Untersuchung,” Archiv für die ge-
samte Psychologie, no. 57 (1926): 165-301, trans. by Sean 
Day, quoted in Sean Day, “Synesthete Composers and 
Musicians,” Synesthesia, July 11, 2021, http://www.day-
syn.com/synesthete-composers-and-musicians.html#an-
chor_147.
% “Pharrell Williams on Juxtaposition and Seeing Sounds,” 
NPR, December 31, 2013, https://www.npr.org/sec-
tions/therecord/2013/12/31/258406317/pharrell-wil-
liams-on-juxtaposition-and-seeing-sounds  

caused by that stimulus.4 Music-color synesthetes 
are explained by their name; they experience 
color upon hearing music.5 !e ways in which this 
phenomenon in&uences musical perception may be 
explored through a systematic investigation into the 
history, neuroscience, and expression of music-color 
synesthesia.

History of a Music–Color Relationship
 While the study of synesthesia itself has only been 
prevalent for the last two hundred years, an interest in 
"nding an association between music and color was 
common among many early thinkers. !roughout 
history, certain individuals designed arbitrary 
systems to assign color (and even sight or taste) to 
certain musical tones or intervals, but there were a 
few scientists that attempted to "nd a quanti"able 
reason for color to be linked to music. One of the "rst 
to conceptualize a possible music-color correlation 
was the Greek mathematician and philosopher 
Pythagoras, circa 550 B.C.6 Pythagoras considered 
music to be a subdivision of mathematics, and is 

' Lisa Herman, “Synesthesia,” Encyclopedia Britannica On-
line, accessed December 4, 2021, https://www.britannica.
com/science/synesthesia. 
5 Ibid. 
( Sean Day, “A Brief History of Synesthesia in the Arts,” 
Synesthesia, July 5, 2011, http://www.daysyn.com/Histo-
ry.html. 



Music-Color Synesthesia: A Historical and Scienti!c Overview

Aisthesis      Volume 13,  202237

credited with the discovery of the 3:2 ratio between 
the frequencies in a perfect ")h interval.7 He worked 
to apply this relationship between mathematics 
and music to numerous observable phenomena, 
attributing to each a tone, a harmonic interval, a 
number, a name, a color, and a form.8 Pythagoras 
endeavored to explain much of the natural world in 
this way, including the constellations, the harmonic 
relationship of the planets, and the elements.9 
 A little over seventeen hundred years later, 
the well-known mathematician and physicist 
Isaac Newton made a more speci"c inquiry into a 
link between music and color. He published his 
treatise Optics in 1704, which featured an analysis 
of the visible spectrum seen when directing white 
light through a prism.10 Newton rather arbitrarily 
separated the visible spectrum into seven colors; 
he associated these with the seven tones in the 
major scale, introducing the barely-distinguishable 
orange and indigo as its half-steps.11 Unfortunately 
for Newton, his color theory was disproved—when 
attempting to mathematically correspond the 
frequencies of visible light to the frequencies of tones 
in the major scale, it became apparent that the range 
of frequencies in visible light spanned an interval of 
about a major sixth, rather than the octave Newton 
had initially imagined.12 Nevertheless, his arbitrary 
color assignments happen to be the origin of the 
well-known acronym ROY-G-BIV used to describe 
the visible spectrum today.13 

* !omas Stanley, "e History of Philosophy (London: 
Humphrey Moseley, and !omas Dring, 1655), quoted 
in “!e Pythagorean !eory of Music and Color,” Sa-
cred Texts, https://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta19.
htm. 
+ Ibid. 
, Ibid. 
10 Ashley Taylor, “Newton’s Color !eory, ca. 1665,” !e 
Scientist, LabX Media Group, March 1, 2017, https://
www.the-scientist.com/foundations/newtons-color-theo-
ry-ca-1665-31931.
11 Ibid. 
12 Ibid. 
13 Ibid.

 A French Jesuit monk named Louis Bertrand 
Castel had a di#erent idea: he wanted to combine 
color and music as related to artistic expression. 
Using color theory from artists at the time, he 
designed a music-color relationship using solfège 
around twenty years a)er Newton devised his color 
theory:

!e green corresponds to re, and will doubtless 
make them [the audience] feel that this note re 
is natural, rural, sprightly, pastoral. Red, which 
corresponds to sol, will give them the idea of a 
warlike note … . !e deaf in this way will be able 
to see the music of the ears, the blind to hear the 
music of the eyes, and we who have both eyes 
and ears will enjoy music and colors better by 
enjoying them both at the same time.14

Castel conceived an instrument known as the color 
organ, in which each key produced not only a rich 
sound but also a dazzling hue.15 He even dreamed 
of having the music of an opera painted out on the 
walls of a room; to have concerts live on through 
color a)er the music fades away.16 While Pythagoras 
and Newton approached the link between music and 
color from a scienti"c standpoint (which is a logical 
conclusion, as both sound and light are composed of 
waves), Castel’s perspective was to "nd an emotional 
connection between the two.
 Pythagoras, Newton, and Castel all theorized 
objective relationships between music and color. 
Before synesthesia was understood objectively, let 
alone de"ned, Georg Tobias Ludwig Sachs recorded 
the "rst subjective encounter with a color-music 

14 Louis Bertrand Castel, Esprit, Saillies et Singularités du 
P. Castel, trans. Irving Babbit (Boston: !e New Laokoon, 
1910), 55, quoted in Erika von Erhardt-Siebold, “Harmo-
ny of the Senses in English, German, and French Roman-
ticism,” PMLA 47 no. 2 (1932): 578. https://www.jstor.org/
stable/pdf/457897.pdf. 
15 Erika von Erhardt-Siebold, “Harmony of the Senses in 
English, German, and French Romanticism,” PMLA 47 no. 
2 (1932): 578. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/457897.
pdf. 
16 Ibid., 578. 



Music-Color Synesthesia: A Historical and Scienti!c Overview

Aisthesis      Volume 13,  202238

connection.17 Widely considered to be the "rst 
documented synesthete, Sachs actually published 
his medical dissertation on albinism, which was 
exhibited both by himself and his youngest sister.18 
His thesis also featured a chapter describing the 
curious blending of senses he experienced but could 
not quantify; he associated color with intervals 
of the musical scale as well as numbers, days of 
the week, letters of the alphabet, and other similar 
ideas.19 Sachs’s account is detailed and objective, 
making it very useful today in understanding the 
concept of synesthesia and recognizing it in people, 
but it garnered little attention when "rst released.20 
!e condition was not even a respectable scienti"c 
subject until the end of the nineteenth century, 
following the research of a few pioneers in the "eld.21

 In 1881, Eugen Bleuler and Karl Bernhard 
Lehmann conducted the "rst comprehensive 
study of synesthesia as young medical students in 
Switzerland.22 Blueler himself was a grapheme-color 
synesthete.23 A)er recognizing Bleuler’s quality as 
unique, the two scientists began an investigation 
of this quality in their family members, eventually 
branching out to an inquiry into other sensory 
associations with a larger sample size (596 people, 

17 Maria Konnakova, “From the Words of an Albino, a 
Brilliant Blend of Color,” Scienti!c American, Springer Na-
ture, February 26, 2013, https://blogs.scienti"camerican.
com/literally-psyched/from-the-words-of-an-albino-a-
brilliant-blend-of-color/https://blogs.scienti"camerican.
com/literally-psyched/from-the-words-of-an-albino-a-
brilliant-blend-of-color. 
18 Ibid. 
19 Ibid. 
20 Matej Hochel and Emilio Gomez, “Synesthesia: !e Ex-
isting State of A#airs,” Cognitive Neuropsychology 25, no.1 
(March 2008): 94, https://www.researchgate.net/publica-
tion/5510942_Synaesthesia_The_existing_state_of_af-
fairs. 
21 Ibid.
22 Jörg Jewanski et al., “!e ‘Golden Age’ of Synesthesia 
Inquiry in the Late Nineteenth Century (1876–1895),” 
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 29, no. 2 (2019), 
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/096470
4X.2019.1636348.
23 Ibid. 

and the largest synesthesia study of its time).24 
Bleuler and Lehmann discovered six new types 
of synesthesia, which they called “secondary 
sensations.”25 !ese included sound to color 
synesthesia, which they believed to be the most 
frequently displayed secondary sensation.26 Bleuler 
and Lehmann calculated that 12.8% of people are 
synesthetes, though this result is much higher than 
what is generally assumed today and is likely due to 
a large portion of their sample size being genetically 
related.27 Importantly, they did not reduce “secondary 
sensations” to a form of mental illness, but rather 
described it as a condition to which everyone is 
predisposed at some level.28

 Bleuler and Lehmann paved the way for more 
scientists to contribute to this growing "eld of study. 
A)er the "rst international symposium on synesthesia 
in Paris in 1889, Romanian psychologist Eduard 
Gruber developed a questionnaire that examined 
in great detail multiple causes of synesthetic events, 
which are now known as synesthetic inducers.29 
!éodore Flournoy, a professor of psychology at the 
University of Geneva, published his Des Phénomènes 
de Synopsie (Synopsia Phenomena) in that same year; 
it is considered to be the most comprehensive analysis 
on the topic in the nineteenth century.30 At the end 
of the nineteenth century, the term “synesthesia” 
was coined by several scientists across the world 
as fascination on the topic became widespread.31 
However, as the concept of behaviorism (which 
posits that human and animal behavior is in&uenced 
by their environment and not internal factors) began 
to dominate among psychologists beginning in the 

24 Ibid. 
25 Jörg Jewanski et al., “!e Evolution of the Concept of 
Synesthesia in the Nineteenth Century as Revealed by the 
History of its Name,” Journal of the History of the Neuro-
sciences 29, no. 3 (2019), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
pmc/articles/PMC7446036. 
26 Ibid. 
27 Ibid. 
28 Ibid. 
29 Jewanski et al., “Synesthesia Inquiry.” 
30 Ibid. 
31 Jewanski et al., “!e Evolution of the Concept of Syn-
esthesia.” 



Music-Color Synesthesia: A Historical and Scienti!c Overview

Aisthesis      Volume 13,  202239

1920s, the number of synesthesia studies diminished, 
as the ideas contradicted.32 Following the cognitive 
revolution in the 1980s and a renewed acceptance of 
human thoughts and feelings as relevant to scienti"c 
investigation, a resurgence of interest in synesthesia 
developed.33

Neuroscience Behind Synesthesia
 While early research on synesthesia seldom 
breached the surface of mere observation and 
documentation, as the timeline of the condition’s 
history arrives at the twenty-"rst century, the search 
for an explanation of the cause of synesthesia begins. 
!e invention of the MRI machine in the 1990s 
allowed researchers to observe that synesthetes 
experience activity in areas of the brain that process 
each simultaneous sensation they perceive (e.g., for 
a music-color synesthete, a stimulus would a#ect 
both the auditory cortex and the visual cortex).34 
It follows that there must be some connection that 
occurs between di#erent sensory processing areas in 
the brain for certain stimuli in synesthetes.
 !ere are two primary theories that use this 
idea to explain mechanics of synesthesia. !e "rst of 
these is the disinhibited feedback theory, developed 
in 2001 by Peter Grossenbacher and Christopher 
Lovelace.35 Grossenbacher and Lovelace proposed 
that synesthesia is caused by a di#erence in brain 
function in the cortex, which deals with higher-level 
processes such as perception.36 When one hears a 
concert A played on a piano, for example, the central 
nervous system carries the sound signal from your 
ear to the auditory cortex. Each of the "ve senses 

32 “History of Synesthesia Research,” Wikipedia, last mod-
i"ed April 6, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histo-
ry_of_synesthesia_research. 
33 Ibid. 
34 Siri Carpenter, “Everyday Fantasia: !e World of Syn-
esthesia,” Monitor on Psychology 32, no. 3 (2001), https://
www.apa.org/monitor/mar01/synesthesia. 
35 Peter Grossenbacher and Christopher Lovelace, 
“Mechanisms of Synesthesia: Cognitive and Physiolog-
ical Constraints,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5, no. 1 
(2001), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/
pii/S1364661300015710?via%3Dihub#BIB33 
36 Ibid. 

correlates to a di#erent sensing area in the brain, 
and these sensing areas feature concurrent sensory 
pathways that are organized from simple associations 
to more complex associations caused by a stimulus. 
When a person perceives a stimulus, such as hearing 
a concert A, speci"c neurons along these pathways 
are "red or inhibited to produce the thought that 
corresponds with the stimulus. !e combination of 
neurons utilized to perceive a certain sensation is 
known as the inducer pathway. Information feeds 
forward along the inducer pathway from a primary 
sensory region of the brain, such as the auditory 
cortex, to higher-order sensory association areas 
of the brain. When these higher-order association 
areas can be accessed by multiple pathways, they 
reciprocate the feedforward signal with a feedback 
signal that travels in the opposite direction. 
Grossenbacher and Lovelace’s theory posits that in 
synesthetes, the brain does not su-ciently inhibit 
certain concurrent sensory pathways from being 
activated as the feedback signal travels along the 
inducer pathway.37 !is causes the feedback signal to 
travel along the concurrent pathway as well as the 
inducer pathway, thus activating additional areas of 
the brain that would not otherwise be a#ected by a 
certain stimulus.38 
 A second prominent theory of the underlying 
cause of synesthesia attributes the condition to a 
di#erence in brain composition, as opposed to a 
di#erence in brain function. Developed in 2001 
by Edward Hubbard and V. S. Ramachandran; the 
cross-activation theory proposes that synesthetes 
have direct neural connections between areas of the 
brain activated by the inducer pathway of a stimulus 
and areas of the brain activated by the concurrent 
pathway of the same stimulus, instead of a connection 
caused by disinhibition of the concurrent pathway.39 
!is theory is supported by signi"cant evidence that 
suggests that there exist in infancy and childhood 
synaptic connections between di#erent areas of the 

37 Ibid. 
38 Ibid. 
39 V.S. Ramachandran and Edward M. Hubbard, “Synaes-
thesia—A Window Into Perception, !ought, and Lan-
guage,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 8, no. 12 (2001): 
3, http://chip.ucsd.edu/pdf/Synaesthesia%20-%20JCS.
pdf. 



Music-Color Synesthesia: A Historical and Scienti!c Overview

Aisthesis      Volume 13,  202240

brain that are “pruned away” with age.40 A failure 
for this to occur could be caused by a mutation in 
the gene that regulates this process, lending further 
credibility to cross-activation, as synesthesia is 
believed to be a genetically inherited trait.41

 While these may be the leading theories on 
the neurology behind synesthesia, neither has 
been proven. Most neuroimaging studies focus 
on grapheme-color synesthetes, and while there is 
support for the cross-activation theory from these 
studies, it cannot follow that this theory would 
necessarily apply to all other forms of synesthesia—
it could be argued that each type of synesthesia is 
brought about in a di#erent manner.42 Furthermore, 
in several neuroimaging studies conducted on 
sound-color synesthetes within the last ")een 
years, neither the disinhibited feedback theory nor 
the cross-activation theory could be de"nitively 
proven as the cause of synesthesia.43 Additional 
studies suggest that music-color synesthesia occurs 
at a conceptual level, rather than through perceptual 
processing of stimuli.44 An alternative theory of 
synesthesia’s cause that aligns with the "ndings 

40 R.C. Kadosh, A. Henik, V. Walsh, “Synesthesia: Learned 
or Lost?” Developmental Science 12 no. 3 (2009), quoted 
in “Synesthesia: Opening the Doors of Perception,” Dart-
mouth Undergraduate Journal of Science (Spring 2010), 
https://sites.dartmouth.edu/dujs/2010/05/30/synesthe-
sia-opening-the-doors-of-perception. 
41 Ramachandran and Hubbard, 3. 
42 Anna Zamm et al., “Pathways to Seeing Music: En-
hanced Structural Connectivity in Colored-Music Synes-
thesia,” quoted in Caroline Curwin, “Music-Color Synes-
thesia: Concept, Context, and Qualia,” Consciousness and 
Cognition 61 (2018): 98, https:// www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S1053810017305883. 
43 Caroline Curwin, “Music-Color Synesthesia: Concept, 
Context, and Qualia,” Consciousness and Cognition 61 
(2018): 99, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti-
cle/ pii/S1053810017305883. 
44 Tessa van Leeuwen, Wolf Singer, and Danko Nikoli., 
“!e Merit of Synesthesia for Consciousness Research,” 
Frontiers in Psychology 2 (2015), quoted in Caroline 
Curwin, “Music-Color Synesthesia: Concept, Context, 
and Qualia,” Consciousness and Cognition 61 (2018): 
100, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S1053810017305883.

from these studies is known as the semantic vacuum 
hypothesis, developed by Danko Nikoli..45 He 
asserts that synesthesia is “created” when a person 
is presented with a semantic vacuum; which occurs 
when there is no preexisting meaning for the brain 
to associate with an abstract concept like !ursday, 
the sound of a G &at, or the name Robert.46 !e brain 
instead forms a connection with a more concrete 
sensation to de"ne the concept.47 !is type of 
association would occur more frequently in children, 
as they have limited world experience.48 Nikoli. 
further proposes a rede"nition of synesthesia as 
ideasthesia, “a mental activation of a certain concept 
or idea [that] is associated consistently with a certain 
perception-like experience.”49 
      
Expression of Music-Color Synesthesia
 Regardless of which of these potential 
explanations of synesthesia is correct, the 
recognition of the relationship that each posit 
between a sensation and an idea is given additional 
signi"cance when attempting to di#erentiate 
synesthetic and non-synesthetic experiences in 
relation to music. !ere are decidedly non-musical 
qualities of music perception shared between music-
color synesthetes and any ordinary person, known 
as normal cross-modal associations. For example, 
in pitch recognition among the general population, 
higher pitches are usually associated with small size, 
lightness, and elevation; and lower pitches are usually 
associated with large size, darkness, and depth.50 
Emotion and color psychology also play signi"cant 
roles in cross-modal associations; in studies on non-
synesthetes led by Stephen E. Palmer, a general trend 

45 Danko Nikoli., “Synesthesia / Ideasthesia,” Prof. Dr. 
Danko Nikoli., accessed December 4, 2021, https://www.
danko-nikolic.com/synesthesia-ideasthesia. 
46 Ibid. 
47 Ibid. 
48 Ibid. 
49 Danko Nikoli., “Is Synaesthesia Actually Ideasthesia? 
An Inquiry into the Nature of the Phenomenon,” quoted 
in Caroline Curwin, “Music-Color Synesthesia: Concept, 
Context, and Qualia,” Consciousness and Cognition 61 
(2018): 100. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ arti-
cle/pii/S1053810017305883. 
50 Curwin, 95. 



Music-Color Synesthesia: A Historical and Scienti!c Overview

Aisthesis      Volume 13,  202241

of relating major keys with bright, saturated, warm-
toned colors and minor keys and dark, pale, cool-
toned colors was discovered.51 !ough this research 
may initially seem to pose a discredit to music-color 
synesthesia in its entirety; the arbitrary, consistent, 
and individual nature of synesthetic associations 
de"ne them separately from normal cross-modal 
associations.52

 Characteristics such as mood, tempo, or tonality 
of a piece of music may produce similar connotations 
for any listener, but the diverse manners in which 
music can be experienced creates unique, complex 
sensory variations for all music listeners. Consider 
the nearly indescribable contrast in one’s mental 
state when listening to music in the car compared 
to through a pair of earbuds, hearing Greensleeves 
performed on the clarinet compared to a child’s 
recorder, or practicing a piece on a Yamaha piano 
versus a Steinway, just to name a few examples. 
!is may seem tedious to discuss, but it is useful 
in understanding di#erences in music-color 
synesthesia from a non-synesthete perspective. Since 
synesthesia is subjective in itself, it follows that any 
colors perceived by music-color synesthetes will 
vary from person to person—notably, the composers 
Franz Liszt and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov disputed 
the “correct” colors of musical keys.53 In addition, 
di#erent music-color synesthetes may respond to 
one or perhaps a combination of distinct inducers, 
the most common being compositional style, timbre, 
tonality, and pitch.54 One music-color synesthete 

51 Ibid. 
52 Jamie Ward et al., “Sound-Colour Synaesthesia: To 
What Extent Does it Use Cross-Modal Mechanisms 
Common to Us All?” Cortex 42, no. 2, quoted in Caro-
line Curwin, “Music-Color Synesthesia: Concept, Con-
text, and Qualia.” Consciousness and Cognition 61 (2018): 
96, https:// www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S1053810017305883. 
53 “Synesthesia,” Wikipedia, last modi"ed December 2, 
2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Synesthesia. 
54 Kenneth Peacock, “Synesthetic Perception: Alexan-
der Scriabin’s Color Hearing,” Music Perception 2, no. 4 
(1985), quoted in Caroline Curwin, “Music-Color Synes-
thesia: Concept, Context, and Qualia.” Consciousness and 
Cognition 61 (2018): 95, https:// www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S1053810017305883.

might associate colors with each of the twelve 
musical tones, while another might associate colors 
with di#erent instruments.
 !is paper develops an extensive understanding 
of the phenomenon of music-color synesthesia, 
from the early conception of a link between music 
and color to the in-depth analysis of the neurological 
condition. Several early thinkers explored possible 
relationships between color and music from both 
logical and emotional standpoints, but until the 
"rst documented synesthete Georg Tobias Ludwig 
Sachs published his thesis featuring a segment on 
his synesthesia, a neurological connection had not 
been considered. Modern research has identi"ed 
several potential causes of general synesthesia, 
such as a di#erence in brain function, a di#erence 
in brain composition, or the inability to associate 
meaning with a new, abstract concept. Music-color 
synesthesia can be expressed in multiple ways 
and from a variety of inducers, similarly to how 
anyone can experience slight changes in mental 
state from di#erently presented music experiences. 
Synesthesia is sometimes presented as an unusual, 
almost superhuman sense—but really, it’s just one 
way to perceive the world around us. Every person 
has their own qualities and experiences that shape 
this perception, whether scarlet means red or scarlet 
means the sound of a trumpet.

Author’s Note
 !e author of this research paper wishes to 
disclose her personal experience with music-color 
synesthesia to add further insight into the subject, 
though her associations are intuitive and di-cult to 
express in words. She also intends to di#erentiate her 
synesthetic experience from normal cross-modal 
associations, which may o)en be misunderstood. It is 
worth mentioning that most research on synesthesia 
to date has examined the qualities of grapheme-
color synesthetes; aural forms of synesthesia are 
o)en mistaken for normal cross-modal associations 
(Glasser). In addition, concerning music-color 
synesthesia, it is o)en di-cult to "nd both research 
professionals and participants with a background 
in music theory to be able to explain concepts in a 
thorough manner (Glasser). 
 Expression of synesthesia. !e author experiences 
an association of color with tones in the musical scale 
(e.g., C is blue, D is violet, etc.). She also associates 
color with chords as a combination of the colors of 



Music-Color Synesthesia: A Historical and Scienti!c Overview

Aisthesis      Volume 13,  2022

the pitches utilized in the chord with an emphasis on 
the color of the root of the chord—for example, a G 
major chord is mostly green (G) with lesser amounts 
of gold (B) and violet (D), but a "rst inversion G 
major chord is mostly gold (B) with lesser amounts of 
violet (D) and green (G). Pitches of higher frequency 
have lighter colors, while pitches of lower frequency 
have darker colors, though this is likely in&uenced 
by normal cross-modal associations. !ese color 
associations become weaker as the combination of 
pitches in unison increases; single notes are the most 
vivid, while jazz chords are frequently colorless. !e 
author associates color with tonality as well; the color 
of the key of any musical piece corresponds with the 
color of its note name, regardless of major or minor 
quality (e.g., A major or minor is dark blue). She 
cannot physically observe these colors or even other 
shapes as some synesthetes do but sees the correct 
color in her mind’s eye when hearing or referring 
to the pitch or tonality in question. She does not 
associate color with di#erent compositional styles or 
with instruments of di#erent timbres; this is likely 
because she only associates color with pitch. 
 Potential bene!ts. !e author has noticed a 
few in&uences of music-color synesthesia in her 
perception of music, both as a musician and an 
audience member. !ese observances are not 
intended as statements of universal truth, but rather 
as a list of potential hypotheses that may be worth 
investigation. !e author happens to have perfect 
pitch in addition to music-color synesthesia, and 
she notices a very strong correlation between the 
two. To identify any note, she has noticed that she 
must "rst identify what “color” she is hearing. !e 
same process is applied to identifying a chord or the 
key of a piece of music. It is unclear to the author 
whether her quality of perfect pitch or synesthesia 
aids her the most in analyzing music, or if these 
qualities developed in relation to each other. In 
addition, the author has noticed that the genres of 
music she enjoys best contain a variety of colors that 
are subconsciously identi"able (e.g. she enjoys folk 
music, but seldom hip-hop). She has also noticed 
that she tends to enjoy listening to songs in certain 
keys more than others due to their colors.
 

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Music-Color Synesthesia: A Historical and Scienti!c Overview

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