Messiaen and Synesthesia: The Color of Music

Gary W. Burdette SPED 735 Historical Fig Leaf Bio

Colors are very important to me because I have a gift its not my fault, its just how I am whenever I hear music or even if I read music, I see colors. Olivier Messiaen

Who was Olivier Messiaen?

 Composer (orchestral, piano, and organ music), organist, pianist, teacher/professor of harmony, analysis, and composition, and ornithologist.

Born: December 10, 1908, in Avignon, France.

Died: April 27, 1992, in Paris. Entered the Paris Conservatory at age 11; would later teach there from 19411978. Compositional aesthetic was highly complex, involved symmetries of time (often breaking with traditional perception of time through the use of additive rhythms, false meters, etc.) and pitch (such as his modes of limited transposition), was influenced by birdsong, and considered color to be the defining characteristic of musical sonorities. He outlines his compositional principles in his 1944 book, Technique de mon language musical (Technique of my Musical Language). Messians robust Catholic faith permeates his musical output. Major works include: Quator pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time, 1940), Visions de lamen (amen meaning affirmation, 1943), and La transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jsus-Christ (The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 1965-9).

What do we know about Synesthesia?

 Broadly speaking, the term synesthesia essentially means joined sensation

(Greek, syn = together + aisthesis = perception). Synesthesia is not a disorder; instead, it is a cross-modal, perceptual experience that is involuntarily elicited by certain stimuli. Synesthesia is inherited, and cant be acquired. Synesthesia is emotional and shares the same experiential qualities with ecstasy. Females experience synesthesia more commonly than males. For many synesthesetes, memory skills are strong, while math skills are subtly deficient. Seizure discharges from the hippocampus can produce synesthesia in individuals who are not synesthetic. Learning disabilities may be more common among synesthetes than the general population.

With the so-called cognitive revolution of the 1950s, study into subjective states was again legitimized. It wasnt until the 1980s, however, that researchers such as Richard Cytowic and Simon Baron-Cohen accompanied by rapid developments in technology began studying synesthesia in earnest within the cognitive realm. More recently, brain-imaging studies have shown significant differences between synesthesetes and non-synesthesets brains. In Messiaens case, then, it has become increasingly clear that his color language wasnt simply metaphorical, but that color indeed formed the fundamental aspect of his harmonic language.

Consider the following video example:

Messiaen discusses Claude Debussys Pellas et Mlisande: http://youtu.be/GSWatsiBErU

What do you think? Can you hear the colors?

Messiaens experience
Messiaens synesthesia manifested as music-color, or colored music, sometimes referred to as chromesthesia. His synesthesia was also bidirectional, meaning music induced color perception and vice versa. Messiaen made use of color chords instead of traditional harmony in crafting his musical works. Indeed, to Messiaen, all music was either colored (he considered Debussy and Mozart exceptional colorists) or devoid of color (for example, atonal and serial music, such as that of Schoenberg). As demonstrated in the prior video clip, Messiaens fundamental conception of color in music presented problems in his pedagogy, as it was difficult for students to perceive colors as he described them.

Messiaens Legacy
Considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century, Messiaens music continues to be studied and performed worldwide.

In addition to his innovative and distinctive compositional style, Messiaen was an early composer for the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument invented in 1928.
Notable students include Pierre Boulez (b. 1925) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007), both of whom composed heavily for electronic media (and whom, in turn, were highly influential in the experimental music of Frank Zappa (1940-1993), among other musicians).

FINAL THOUGHT: Research has suggested that color-coded music notation is beneficial to music learning for students with special needs. As the body of research on synesthesia continues to grow, could we one day see color-coded musical materials and notation systems that function to serve as many students as possible within the framework of Universal Design?