Music in full colour.

[gingerjazz]

Just thought i would ask if anyone else here uses a similar technique as me when writing out scale,arpeggio or chord diagrams.About ten years ago i put together a colour code for my intervals.This was after years of looking at charts that in most cases would only distinguish the root from the other black dots.With my colour coded diagrams i could instantly find a third or fifth or whatever by its colour.To me this seemed so obvious i thought there must be a reason i had not seen this done before.After ten years i still have not found any drawbacks.I have also applied it to the worksheet idea in Joe Elliots book,An Introduction to jazz soloing.If any one wants to talk about my system please ask away.Please note i am a very visual learner and have found this a great help to me,wether it is any help to anyone else would be for them to decide.So please dont think i am in anyway challenging the more widely used teaching methods.Peace.

[gingerjazz]

Just in case anyone is interested in how i came to choose which colours to relate to which intervals this was my thought process.The root i made black as it was in all my books anyway.For the third,fifth and seventh it seemed to make sense to use primary colours.So the third is dark green,the fifth is dark blue,and the seventh is bright red.The major second i gave yellow as to my mind it is the next colour down from the primary colours(remember in my mind).Now for the minor intervals,for minor third i chose lime green,the thought process being that backing of a major interval a half tone was similar to fading dark green.minor seventh is pink one back from red.Minor second i chose orange rather than light yellow.For the minor fifth i chose light blue,again one back from dark blue.Major sixth is brown,minor sixth is grey(cmon i am running out of colours here after all).perfect fourth is purple ,the only colour i had left in my pencil crayon set.Someone else might see the colour to sound connection different,i suppose its a personal thing.If i left any out let me know and i will tell you the colour i now see it as.Peace.

[JonnyPac]

Alexander Scriabin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Check this out.

[gingerjazz]

Great stuff Johnny,to keep my post fairly short i failed to mention that part of my inspiration for this idea was after reading about autistic savants,whom some believe achieve their incredible abilities through synesthesia .I now believe i have a sort of learned synesthesia,a bit like we learn relative pitch.My coloured arpeggio charts are also great for working out chord fingerings and inversions up and down the neck.As an educator yourself what do you make of my approach.

[JonnyPac]

Well, I don't know really! I "see" colors a bit in my mind for certain tonalities, etc, but nothing too extreme. I like the metaphor of harmonic color quite a bit, literal interpretations are outside my thinking. Using color coded intervals on a chat can help.

[gingerjazz]

Just to be clear Johnny i in know way suffer from synesthesia,if suffer is the right term,i merely took my inspiration from reading about it.As a quick aside,have you ever looked into the music of Harry partch,another outside thinker,i recently read his book ,genesis of a music.I have to confess some of it went over my head but there was a lot of interesting stuff about him in there,and the instruments he built were works of art in themselves.In case you havent noticed i am a bookworm.

[bobsguitars09]

Originally Posted by gingerjazz

Just thought i would ask if anyone else here uses a similar technique as me when writing out scale,arpeggio or chord diagrams.About ten years ago i put together a colour code for my intervals.This was after years of looking at charts that in most cases would only distinguish the root from the other black dots.With my colour coded diagrams i could instantly find a third or fifth or whatever by its colour.To me this seemed so obvious i thought there must be a reason i had not seen this done before.After ten years i still have not found any drawbacks.I have also applied it to the worksheet idea in Joe Elliots book,An Introduction to jazz soloing.If any one wants to talk about my system please ask away.Please note i am a very visual learner and have found this a great help to me,wether it is any help to anyone else would be for them to decide.So please dont think i am in anyway challenging the more widely used teaching methods.Peace.

Interesting. can you post some examples? sounds excellent

[gingerjazz]

Hi Bobs guitar,unfortunately i have no real way to post actual pictorial examples but i will attempt to describe how it helps me with learning to improvise,using a simple major 251 as an example.What i would do here is choose a position to use and draw out three seperate charts of the three arpeggios using my colour codes.Because i am now so familliar with the scale noes in between the chord tones i dont feel the need to draw them.I then find it very east to target specific chord tones such as thirds where i would head for the green notes at beat one of each chord.I also find these chart helpfull for seeing half step resolutions from one chord to the next.All in all i just find it much easier to see the whole picture all at once.Again i would like to point out that i do not know if this is only of use to me or wether others would find it usefull.Please ask if ihave not explained this very well as i do find it quite hard explaining it in words rather than just posting a picture like yourequested.Peace.

[tonedeaf]

Originally Posted by gingerjazz

Great stuff Johnny,to keep my post fairly short i failed to mention that part of my inspiration for this idea was after reading about autistic savants,whom some believe achieve their incredible abilities through synesthesia .I now believe i have a sort of learned synesthesia,a bit like we learn relative pitch.My coloured arpeggio charts are also great for working out chord fingerings and inversions up and down the neck.As an educator yourself what do you make of my approach.

This was my first thought when I read your initial post. The author of "Born on a Blue Day", an autistic savant, kept track of days by color. He also held the record for reciting the most number of digits of pi, using a wave form and color. Fascinating story.

[jamsebrown]

I always liked the music mood affect each other. Music has been my whole life like mine. Confidence, bravado, music is sweeping across the spectrum of the color wheel and the testimony of emotions. I have been involved in the treatment of many musicians before, has been in the music community to flourish.

[a22]

Well, I'm a synesthete so everything is sort of color coded in my head already. Using other colors than those that come naturally through synesthesia in diagrams etc would actually probably distract me, but maybe reinforcing the automatic synesthetic response to symbols by using the same colors could be a good idea

Originally Posted by gingerjazz

Just to be clear Johnny i in know way suffer from synesthesia,if suffer is the right term

It definitely isn't, at least in my mild case!

[richardluthar]

I always like the music mood affect each other. I like the music has been my whole life. Confidence, bravado, the music swept spectrum color wheel and emotional testimony. I have been in treatment before, has been thriving music community in the many musicians involved. And different thought of you music in colour bit.

[Buster Loaf]

Green aint a primary color.