It is well known that that there are seven colors in the rainbow spectrum. The seven different colors are red, yellow, orange, green and blue, indigo and violet. It was in 1666 that Isaac Newton discovered that white light was made up of seven different colored rays called the spectrum. White light is measured by wave length. A visible portion of the spectrum that is seen by the human eye is around 400 (Blue) to 700 nm (Red). Light is measured in wavelength and the color depends on frequency.
How Music And Color Are Similar - The Speed Of Light & The Speed Of Sound
In music there are seven different notes in a musical scale. The notes are A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Sound and light have one thing in common: they move and are measured in waves. How we perceive them depends on the wavelengths. Sound waves can be described in a number of ways, one being its frequency measured in Hz or hertz. Humans can hear a range of 12Hz to 120 kHz. The higher the Hz the higher the pitch. A sound wave with a long wavelength has a low frequency; we hear these waves as low pitched sounds. High pitched sounds come from waves with short wavelengths and therefore a higher frequency.
The Idea Was Nothing New
Ancient Greek philosophers like Aristotle and Phthagoras speculated that there must be a correlation between the musical scale and the rainbow spectrum of hues. Dr. Vilyanur Ramacandran a neurologist who studies quirks of the brain has imaged the brain of 27 year old Ray McAllister, a man who sees music. During the scan, music stimulated audio cortex and his visual cortex “That area lit up on him” said Dr. Ramachandran “So you know there was activity in the visual area of the brain“ ("A Sixth Sense"). It’s all the more surprising because McAllister is blind. The visible portions of the spectrum that can be seen by the naked eye correspond closely with the short-wave length.
Synesthesia- Is This a Gift Or a Disorder?
George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue) may have had a brain disorder that allowed him to see musical notes as colors. The brain disorder would have been a real gift called Synesthesia. Synesthesia is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. Those who have this gift see colors for letters, numbers and musical notes. For some the stimulus is limited to music or musical key.
Famous musicians who have or have had Synesthesia were Composer Duke Ellington, the Hungarian composer Frank Liszt, American musicians John Mayer and drummer Brian Chase, Syd Barret of Pink Floyd fame and Olivier Messiaen, the French composer who was widely regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. Recently this subject of synesthesia has been getting some attention with a test being given on Youtube, but the mystery behind it might be explained by science.
Reference
CBS New Online. "A Sixth Sense." Cbsnews.com Aug 14,2002
WiseGeek.com - "What is a Wavelength"
Jim Galloway - Professional Musician/Published Songwriter for 30 yrs. With over 200 Articles in Recording/Music Buisness/ Resources/Vintage Instruments
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