color with music performances

I am looking for information about how composers relate musical pitch to color (on Munsell Scale). In other words ---- what color is related to G pitch or to C pitch? I have heard of someone doing some such color performances. Has anyone conducted a survey of how the general public relates color to musical pitch?

Alita Morrison

--- In tuning@y..., "Ed & Alita Morrison" <ESSAIM@T...> wrote:
> I am looking for information about how composers relate musical
pitch to color (on Munsell Scale). In other words ---- what color is
related to G pitch or to C pitch? I have heard of someone doing some
such color performances. Has anyone conducted a survey of how the
general public relates color to musical pitch?
>
> Alita Morrison

Among synesthetes there is no general agreement as to the
correspondence. One of our list members has some information on his
own research on his site:
http://www.ilhawaii.net/~lucy/lsd/colors.html
and there are many other sites on the net that can be found by doing a
search on synesthesia.

JS

--- In tuning@y..., "John Starrett" <jstarret@c...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "Ed & Alita Morrison" <ESSAIM@T...> wrote:

>>>> I am looking for information about how composers relate musical
> pitch to color (on Munsell Scale). In other words ---- what color
is related to G pitch or to C pitch? >>>>
.........

Hi Alita, Jacky, John, and all,

The colours of the notes, as given in 'sangitaratnakara' [1.3.54-55],
are as under:
Sa, shining red; Re, yellowish; Ga, golden yellow; Ma, brilliant
white; Pa, black; Dha, plain yellow; Ni, variegated.

Regards,
Haresh.

I thank all of you who answered when I asked about the pitch-color topic. I will do the reading as fast as I can. If anyone has more ideas and information I will be interested.

I need to ask more about "sangitaratnakara." What is it? Is it a book or article? Where do I find it? Also what notes are Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni ? I am familiar with Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do and chromatic steps in between, Do, Di, Re Ri, Mi, Fa, Fi, Sol, Si, La, Li, Ti, Do.

I also wonder (as a survey) what colors do you relate to notes of the scale. I would be interested in hearing from many of you, your feelings of the pitch-color relationship.

Alita

--- In tuning@y..., "Ed & Alita Morrison" <ESSAIM@T...> wrote:

.................

>>>> I need to ask more about "sangitaratnakara." What is it? Is it
a book or article? Where do I find it? Also what notes are Sa, Re,
Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni ? I am familiar with Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La,
Ti, Do and chromatic steps in between, Do, Di, Re Ri, Mi, Fa, Fi,
Sol, Si, La, Li, Ti, Do. >>>>

Hello Alita,

First: "sangitaratnakara" is an authentic book on Indian classical
music, written in the thirteenth century AD, by Sharngadeva, who was
also a renowned physician, and accountant. He belonged to a
family which hailed from Kashmir. His grandfather, Bhaskara, a
scholar-physician, migrated from Kashmir to Devagiri (present
Daulatabad), some time in the twelfth century. The
text, 'sangitaratnakara', consists of seven chapters -- the first six
on music, and the seventh on dance. You may access the English
translation (by me) of parts of 'sangitaratnakara' in a series, on
the web site
http://sanskrit.forums.bhaarat.com/

Second: Yes; Sa-Re-Ga-Ma-Pa-Dha-Ni-Sa is the Indian equivalent of Do-
Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do. But the difference is that Indian system is a
5-limit JI system -- not a tempered scale. The tonic, the frequency
of reference, may be anywhere on the frequency continuum. For
convenience and consistency in reporting, however, the key 'C' is
often taken to be the 'Sa', the tonic (as Jacky has done). In this
case, again, most of the notes of Indian music will lie in
the "crevices" of the piano keyboard. Only the fourth, Ma, and the
fifth, Pa, are close to the 12-teT scale.

Thanks,
Haresh.

This might interest you too:
Thornley Head, Phineas de; et al.
_Synaesthesia and Pitch-Colour Isomorphism in Three Dimensional RGB Space_.
BSc thesis, University of Southampton, 1999.
http://phinland.net/Works/Papers/syn99.html

Manuel

--- In tuning@y..., "Haresh BAKSHI" <hareshbakshi@h...> wrote:

> Second: Yes; Sa-Re-Ga-Ma-Pa-Dha-Ni-Sa is the Indian equivalent of
Do-
> Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do. But the difference is that Indian system is
a
> 5-limit JI system -- not a tempered scale. The tonic, the
frequency
> of reference, may be anywhere on the frequency continuum. For
> convenience and consistency in reporting, however, the key 'C' is
> often taken to be the 'Sa', the tonic (as Jacky has done). In this
> case, again, most of the notes of Indian music will lie in
> the "crevices" of the piano keyboard. Only the fourth, Ma, and the
> fifth, Pa, are close to the 12-teT scale.

I guess you don't count 4 or 6 cents as close, then? Hmmm . . . I
doubt if even the finest Western and Indian musicians collaborating
in a cross-cultural musical project would worry about 4-cent
differences . . . while the 12- and 14-cent differences, certainly
yes (the [very common] use of the 12-tET harmonium in Indian music
always hurts my ears).

Indian Scale 12-tET scale
name cents name cents
Sa 0 Do 0
Re 204 Re 200
Ga 386 Mi 400
Ma 498 Fa 500
Pa 702 Sol 700
Dha 906 La 900
Ni 1088 Ti 1100
Sa 1200 Do 1200

--- In tuning@y..., "Paul Erlich" <paul@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "Haresh BAKSHI" <hareshbakshi@h...> wrote:
>
> > > >Second: Yes; Sa-Re-Ga-Ma-Pa-Dha-Ni-Sa is the Indian
equivalent of Do-> > Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do. But the difference is
that Indian system is a 5-limit JI system -- not a tempered scale.
The tonic, the frequency of reference, may be anywhere on the
frequency continuum. For convenience and consistency in reporting,
however, the key 'C' is often taken to be the 'Sa', the tonic (as
Jacky has done). In this case, again, most of the notes of Indian
music will lie in the "crevices" of the piano keyboard. Only the
fourth, Ma, and the fifth, Pa, are close to the 12-teT scale. >>>>

[Paul said]:
>>>> I guess you don't count 4 or 6 cents as close, then? Hmmm . . .
I doubt if even the finest Western and Indian musicians collaborating
in a cross-cultural musical project would worry about 4-cent
differences . . . while the 12- and 14-cent differences, certainly
yes (the [very common] use of the 12-tET harmonium in Indian music
> always hurts my ears). >>>>

....

Hi Paul, thanks for your considered views on the issue of the extent
of "closeness" of a performed note to its ideal counterpart. In fact,
that is THE point.

Such situations arise far too frequently, and need to be treated most
thoroughly. If necessary, we should come up with and enunciate a
principle which will try to eliminate arbitrariness in a major way. I
tried exactly this, by presenting "Heisenberg's Principle of
Indeterminancy to Indian classical music" in message #28557, on
September the 24th. Let us apply this principle to the question
under consideration.

Here, the ideal, during the performance, is to attain the frequency
of the 'performed' note as close as possible, to the requirement of
the target temperament. That is the THEORY. Any performer should
have the calibre to achieve this ideal in the laboratory conditions,
which, almost, do exist on the stage, when a performer completes the
dynamic part of his performance and decides to 'stay' on the
targetted note.

During the dynamic part of his performance, he is close to, and
around, his targetted note -- if he were to be exactly ON the note at
that juncture, the beauty of the dynamics (alankara-s, gamaka-s, etc)
would be lost entirely. When he is through with the dynamic passage,
he chooses to resolve the aesthetic tension he created previously
through dynamics -- by standing on the targetted note. But, this
time his performed note should sound in the ideal frequency.

The next question is: How far, +/- in cents, should the deviation
from the ideal frequency, be considered tolerable? The answer is:
This will depend upon both the performer and the listener, as well
as on the cultural origin of the music being performed. As you have
remarked, any difference of +/- upto, arbitrarily and generally, of,
say, 4-12 cents, should sound tolerable in many cases. How do I
know this? -- I do NOT!

Here, I am reminded of the raga Marwa (on which we have exchanged
views, though in a different context, during one of our off-list
discussions). How low should we sing the komal Re (Db) in Marwa?
The answer, perhaps a little unexpected, is: as low as you want Marwa
to sound plaintive -- the more sorrowful you want Marwa to sound, the
lower the komal Re, which you reach by meend from Ga (so it is
dynamic). This is a typical case of flexibility, not arbitrariness.

To sum up: No tolerance for steady notes; some small, arbitrary and
variable tolerance during the dynamic treatment. This seems to be a
good, working, starting point.

This, I believe, will apply, to cross-cultural musical projects, too.
Here, the simultaneous existence of more than one temperament will
create some "roughness" in the in the performance. But this,
hopefully, would be more than taken care of, by the novelty and
quality of the performance.

Regards,
Haresh.