Lois Svard

Tag: music perception

  • Making music with brain waves

    Imagine that you have been singing all your life.  You’re not a professional, but you sing with the elementary school students in your fifth-grade class, you conduct a church choir, and you’re good.  You have a nice voice, you can sing in tune and finding the right pitch is never a problem.  Suddenly one day,…

  • Seeing sounds, hearing colors, part II

    Imagine if you saw a color whenever you looked at someone’s face, and different faces were different colors.  Or tasted eggs when you heard the word “fax.”  Or saw a mental map placing any number you saw or heard in a certain location in space (as in the image at the left, called a number…

  • Seeing sounds, hearing colors, part I

    I have often asked a student “what color does this movement (or excerpt, or chord progression) suggest to you?”  Color becomes a metaphor for sound – an additional tool for accessing the emotional content of the work, because most of us (even if unaware of it) associate colors with emotions – lighter colors for happiness,…