| | | What color is this Chord ? What color is this Song ? |
| C | white | G | red | A | green | E | yellow | F# | black | Db | violet | Ab | blue | Eb | pink |
| Amy Cheney Beach was widely regarded as the outstanding American woman composer of her time. She naturally associated certain major keys with colors, as shown at left. |  |  | Liszt, Franz (1811 -1886) "When Liszt first began as Kapellmeister in Weimar (1842), it astonished the orchestra that he said: 'O please, gentlemen, a little bluer, if you please! This tone type requires it!' Or: 'That is a deep violet, please, depend on it! Not so rose!' First the orchestra believed Liszt just joked; more later they got accustomed to the fact that the great musician seemed to see colors there, where there were only tones" (quoted from an anonymous article in the Neuen Berliner Musikzeitung (29 August, 1895); quoted in Mahling 1926: 230) (my translation). | |
C | white | G | brownish-gold, light | D | daylight, yellowish, royal | A | clear, pink | E | blue, sapphire, bright | B | gloomy, dark blue with steel shine | F# | greyish-green | Db | darkish, warm | Ab | greyish-violet | Eb | dark, gloomy, grey-bluish | Bb | darkish | F | green, clear (color of greenery) | |  | Rimsky-Korsakov had synaesthetically colored musical keys: | | Sibelius, Jean (1865 - 1957) | "For him there existed a strange, mysterious connection between sound and color, between the most secret perceptions of the eye and ear. Everything he saw produced a corresponding impression on his ear - every impression of sound was transferred and fixed as color on the retina of his eye and thence to his memory. And this he thought as natural, with as good reason as those who did not possess this faculty called him crazy or affectedly original.
"For this reason he only spoke of this in the strictest confidence and under a pledge of silence. 'For otherwise they will make fun of me!'" (Adolf Paul (1890), as quoted in Ekman 1938: 41-42). | 
| | | | | Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Wonder, John Mayer | |
| Exact Color / Musical Note Correspondence Chart
note: in this example C=256.
Modern ISO C=261.63Hz | There are many ancient and modern interpretations of the correspondences between color and musical notes. This one is completely accurate and non-arbitrary because it is generated by frequency doubling the notes 41 times until we find them in the hertzian band of visible light. |
| C
| C#
| D
| D#
| E
| F | (green) | (blue green) | (blue) | (blue-violet) | (violet) | (red-violet) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | F#
| G
| G#
| A
| A#
| B
| (red) | (red-orange) | (orange) | (yellow-orange) | (yellow) | (yellow-green) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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