Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1883 — Connection Between Colors and Sounds. [ARTICLE]

Connection Between Colors and Sounds.

Some curious experiments have been made ter show the connection between colors and sounds. The blind, it is wffll known, often translate sound into color. An opthalmologist of Nantes discovered that a sharp note produced on one of his patients a brighter, and a flat note a darker, impression of color. Different musical instruments gave different results. The saxophone brought out a sense of yellow; the clarionet, of red; the piano, of blue. The impressions produced by the human voice were more delicate shades of yellow, green, red and blue. The seat of the color was always in the direction of the sound. In choir-singing M. Pedrono’s patient “noticed a multitude of colors formed in small points above the heads of the choristers. ” Analagous to these were the experiments of Prof. Holeman, of Philadelphia, to show the effect of sound on the colors and figures in soap-bubbles. A film of soap being placed across the end of a phoneidoscope, was reflected on a canvas screen, where it assumed a bluish-gray appearance. An intonation of the Voice through a tube connected with the film first brought outanumber of black spots on the reflection. These passing away were succeeded by a beautiful light green, mingled with pink. The same tone would always cause the same figure to appear, but had no control over the color, which might be blue at one time and yellow at another.