Music and Escher
A while back, I stumbled upon a great way to play music. Apparently, you can see sound using a special pattern of colors. Of course, I was skeptical about this at first because I thought the idea was impossible. But it’s true—color and music follow the exact same patterns. And this connection is known as “Color Music.”
Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Once you see notes using color, you can quickly play any scale, chord, and progression. In fact, it’s nothing less than mind-blowing.
What’s strange is that people have been trying to find a link between color and sound for a long time. For example, Aristotle wrote in 350 B.C.E. that color and music must follow the same rules. And in 1704, Isaac Newton wrote a lot about a possible connection. The only problem was they were looking at the wrong patterns. And, really, that’s all music and colors are—patterns. The link between them just has a little twist.
A perfect way to think of twisted—but totally simple—patterns is to look at the art of M.C. Escher. For example, the picture below is by Escher (who happens to be one of my all-time favorite humans). If you haven’t heard of Escher, then today is your lucky day. Born in 1898, the man was no fool. In fact, he was a genius. And what boggles my mind is that most of his work—including this one—was created as a woodcut. In other words, this isn’t a painting or computer graphic … he actually carved this image into a piece of wood!
At first glance, it may seem like this image has nothing to do with music. “These are some awesome-looking birds and fish,” you might think, “but so what?” Well, it so happens that musical patterns really do look a lot like this. Only you have to look at them in just the right way. Of course, musical notes aren’t animals that can swim or fly…but music patterns do suddenly spring to life when you can actually see them. And that’s what Color Music does—it lets you see things you thought were impossible. In fact, it was the symmetry of M.C. Escher’s work that led to the connection of Color Music.
(M.C. Escher’s work is a copyright of Cordon Art, Netherlands.)
