[Dixielandjazz] Delete if you're not interested in key/tone color

[dingle at baldwin-net.com]

Bill Gunter wrote:

>Hi listmates,
>
>I have done a bit more googling on the matter and found this interesting 
>thesis regarding Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov and the way they viewed music.
>
>Source: Wierzbicki writings on Synaesthesia (see last sentence below)
>
>----->start clip
>
>Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov ''saw'' musical sounds, and ''heard'' colors, 
>in their own ways. That stimuli of one sense organ triggered responses in 
>another was something in which they adamantly believed. For them, the 
>so-called synesthetic reaction was both constant and consistent.
>According to the article on ''Color and Music'' in the wonderfully musty 
>1938 edition of the Oxford Companion to Music, the two composers had very 
>specific color-music scales in mind. Here they are:
>
>    Scriabin
>C      Red
>C#   Violet
>D     Bright yellow
>D#   Steel gray
>E      Bluish white
>F      Red
>F#    Bright blue
>G      Orange-rose
>G#    Purple-violet
>A      Green
>A#    Steel gray
>B       Bluish white
>
>     Rimsky-Korsakov
>C      White
>C#    Dusky
>D      Yellow
>D#    Bluish gray
>E      Sapphire blue
>F      Green
>F#    Grayish green
>G      Brownish gold
>G#    Grayish violet
>A      Rosy
>A#    ----
>B     Dark blue
>
>Why Rimsky-Korsakov was unable to ''see'' the pitch A-sharp remains a 
>mystery. But he did claim to ''see'' all the other pitches. Like Scriabin's, 
>his musical scale was chromatic in more ways than one. And different though 
>they are in their details, the scales' occasional correspondences seem more 
>remarkable than their contradictions.
>
>-----> end clip
>
>These distinctions had only to do with the KEY and not the instrument(s).
>
>An interesting observation for me personally was that when I played a C 
>arpeggio and then a C# arpeggio on my keyboard for the lovely and gracious 
>Beverly (my beloved bride) and asked her about this she replied:
>
>C arpeggio -- light and airy
>C# arpeggio -- dark, like a rainy day
>
>Now Bev knows zip about musical structure, but she has a great ear and knows 
>precisely what she likes and doesn't like.
>
>Compare that to Scriabin (C - Red,  C# - Violet), and Rimsky-Korsakov (C - 
>White,  C# - Dusky).
>
>I don't get these perceptions. But that don't mean it don't exist 
>(grammatical errors for emphasis).
>
>So Scriabin would hear the "Happy Birthday To You" song played in F as "red" 
>and played in A as green.  I think red is a better birthday color than 
>green, but then again . . .
>
>For further edification on this subject click on this:
>
>http://pages.sbcglobal.net/jameswierzbicki/synaesthesia.htm
>
>Respectfully submitted,
>
>Bill "It's a strange and wonderful world" Gunter
>jazzboard at hotmail.com
>
>
>
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>
>  
>
Well, Herr Doktor Gunter, I havea friend whosees things, too. He sees  
flying saucers. Flying cups and serving plates, too whenever he stays 
too long at  the happy hour  cast party.  Don't know what the classical 
lads were drinking, but that they only saw color in their music is a 
blessing. From the long  posts on this subject, it is plain that seeing 
is not always believing. It would be interesting to know if you would 
see different colors between Condon or Turk, or between Monk and Tiny Hil.
Color me gone on t his suibject -- the open jug of Cardhu awaits and one 
must not keep it waiting.
Don (waiting for the evening trend) Ingle.