Does Music Have Color? The Phenomenon of Synesthesia in Composers

What synesthesia is.

Some people don't just hear music — they see it. For them, notes have colors, chords glow, and a symphony feels like a kaleidoscope. This phenomenon is called synesthesia. How it works — read on in this DeTalks article.

When Sounds Trigger Visual or Emotional Associations

Synesthesia is a distinct neurophysiological phenomenon that causes 4-5% of humanity to perceive the world differently from everyone else. For people like this, sounds can have colors, letters can have scents, and numbers can have a specific spatial arrangement. It's a kind of 'blending of senses,' where one stimulus triggers several sensory systems at once, creating a vivid range of sensations.

Researchers at the University of Geneva's medical school and Foch Hospital in France have already described more than 60 varieties of synesthesia, though the total number may reach into the hundreds. Some types occur together — people who 'see' music in color may also 'feel' individual sounds through touch.

It's believed that this phenomenon arises from hereditary differences in the brain. The regions responsible for different senses connect differently, so the brain perceives information not as separate parts, but all at once, as a unified whole.

How Color Associations Shape Synesthete Composers' Musical Thinking

The connection between color and sound existed even in ancient cultures, where it was seen as a way to convey emotion, mood, or even spiritual state. Colors in music were a 'symbolic language' that composers used to express feeling. Red, for instance, symbolized passion and strength, white stood for purity, and blue for spirituality and calm.

The contemporary study 'Adults Can Be Trained to Acquire Synesthetic Experiences' shows that in people with synesthesia, music can trigger color sensations, since their auditory and visual brain regions are more tightly connected. MRI and electrophysiological data confirm that while listening to sound, these people activate not just auditory regions but visual ones too, particularly areas V4/V8, responsible for processing color and visual imagery.

Because of this 'enhanced' interaction between sensory systems, synesthetes' brains — people for whom one stimulus automatically triggers another sensation — perceive music as a combination of sound and color at once.

Bert Appermont

In every movement of the Belgian composer's piece 'Colors,' written for trombone and orchestra, a different color and mood dominates: yellow symbolizes inspiration, light, and wisdom; red stands for passion, fury, and courage; blue conveys dreaminess, calm, and melancholy; and green embodies harmony, hope, and balance.

Appermont has said he wanted to express the traits, associations, and emotions tied to each of these colors, the composer notes.

Lesia Dychko

The Ukrainian composer assigns color, imagery, or symbolism to musical keys. For her, A major and F-sharp minor carry a deep blue shade and evoke spring greenery and the month of March, while G-flat major connects to the color of earth, of black soil, of nature and joy. Lesia believes minor keys sit close to major ones but sound slightly duller, as if muted.

Olivier Messiaen

For the French composer, every chord or mode has its own palette. His third mode of limited transposition, for instance, he associates with orange, shimmering with green, red, gold, and opal tones.

Messiaen considers the harmony between sound and color inseparable — any mismatched combination caused him dissonance and even physical discomfort. His cluster chords create an effect like shifting stained glass or gemstones, in which sounds and colors merge into a single rainbow-like harmony.

Can You Learn to See Music?

Research indicates that true synesthesia is more likely innate. Still, there are methods that let people develop connections between sounds and colors. One experiment, for instance, showed that adults can develop stable associations between letters and colors through certain kinds of training. At the same time, scientists stress that trained associations like these are only a partial approximation of the real phenomenon.

But researchers in the UK and Switzerland don't rule out the possibility of developing it through appropriate training. Earlier studies show that certain elements of synesthesia, like forming stable associations between sounds and colors, can be cultivated. Future research should determine whether training like this could improve memory, boost imagination, or stimulate creativity.