There are many words which identify particular sounds. They are mainly onomatopoeic - crackle, rustle, cuckoo, thump, whisper. Trying directly to describe the quality of a musical sound, however, provides problems. In attempting to describe the contrasting sounds made by two different baritones we tend to borrow words from the visual world - bright, brilliant, dark, dull.
The term ΓÇ£colouring the voiceΓÇ¥ is frequently used by singers. Different vowels are different colours, for example, but a singer uses the term as a general description and seldom ascribes a particular colour to a particular sound. An oo isnΓÇÖt necessarily blue, nor an ee green. Any one vowel can itself be coloured in different ways. This is all an attempt to describe the harmonic structure within a sound - its own unique balance of partial notes and their respective frequencies.
The artist David Hockney has designed many sets for opera productions. He talks of finding specific colours in passages of music, that become the predominant colour in his design. As a result, his audiences are bathed in music and colour that seem to belong together and to enhance each other. Some musical theorists and technicians have tried to define this sensory relationship between colours and musical sounds. They do so by studying the frequencies of coloured light-waves and comparing them mathematically to those of the sound waves created by different harmonies. The composer Olivier Messiaen developed his own instinctive sound and colour theory, writing works for instruments and voices which specifically tried to recreate sensations of a moving colour spectrum.
Human perception of colour in sound remains subjective, however. In the VoxBox, you can attach several different musical chords to the colours provided, to explore your own perception of the links between seeing and hearing. In the process you will be making your own multi-media, moving work of art. You may find your perceptions change according to your mood, the time of day, the people you are with, or the music you have recently heard. Toi, toi, toi!
The chords in the VoxBox, like all the original music and arrangements in the Academy of Song, have been created by our composer-in-residence, Peter Hutchings, from multi-tracked voice samples.
