When considering the connection between colour and sound Aristotle wrote:
Colours may mutually relate like musical concords for their pleasantest arrangement; like those concords mutually proportionate.
With these words Aristotle triggered a line of enquiry that would be continued by the likes of Newton, Castell, Diez, Scriabin, and Bishop. Thus for over 2,000 years Aristotle’s thoughts have reverberated through the great periods of history.
Aristotle attached colours to the intervals present in the seven-note scale (as identified by Pythagoras 200 years earlier). These seven mathematically spaced tones were believed to reflect the harmony of spheres, a cosmic order acknowledged over 1,000 years later by Isaac Newton. In this colour scale, violet was assigned the most mathematically perfect of the intervals, the octave. This seven-tone colour scale continued to be part of cultural discourse throughout the Middle Ages in Europe.
And so ends the Colour of Sound series, at the beginning. What new conclusions regarding colour and sound will be reached in the future? Which colour do you see when you hear a tone, which tone do you hear when you see a colour?
Jay-Dea Lopez is a field recordist and sound artist from the Northern Rivers region of NSW. His field recordings have appeared in film, radio and stage.