"Pictures at a Music-color Exhibition": Exploring Children`s and Adults` Chromaesthesia in Response to Classical Music

A phenomenon known as ‘color-hearing’ or Chromaesthesia, namely hearing a sound or a piece of music in terms of colors, is considered to be the most usual form of Synaesthesia (Peacock, 1987; Rothem & Meier, 2010). However, the origin of Synaesthesia as well as Cromaesthesia is controversial and in many fields of knowledge there is no consensus about its nature (e.g., Cytowic, 1989; Marks, 1975). Studying Chromaesthesia among subjects of different age levels who encounter classical music is a most innovative area of research. The purpose of a phenomenological study presented here is to identify Chromaesthetic categories among young naïve listeners as well as college and university music majors, who listen to a classical repertoire, which includes orchestral pieces, opera excerpts and piano works, spanning from the medieval period to the 20^th century. One example is a 12^thcentury anonymous choral from the liturgical drama `The Play of Daniel` accompanied by medieval instruments. Participants (N=225) were Israeli second-grade school children (N=118) as well as college and university undergraduate and graduate music majors (N=107), who listened to the musical repertoire, and via audio-graphic illustrations and related verbal explanations, correlated auditory elements with visual colors and color metaphors. Basic Chromaesthetic categories emerged from the data, which are representatively displayed as a "Music-color Exhibition". One of the results of the study is that naïve children and adult musicians alike perceive and convey relationships between musical elements and color. It means that listeners of various age levels and musical backgrounds may have a Chromaesthetic sensation when listening to classical music of different genres and historical periods. The study shows how Chromaesthesia is central to listeners` musical cognition, not only as an element of graphical symbolism, but as a means to authentically mediate musical meaning. By legitimizing subjective Chromaesthetic interpretations, audio-graphic art becomes a most valuable tool for music educators to cultivate their students` imagination as they listen to classical works. It is also a unique way for music teachers, who examine their own pedagogical work, to explore the mind behind the musical ear (Bamberger, 1991) of their students within the music education curriculum.

Keywords: Chromaesthesia; Audio-graphic art; Classical music in the curriculum; Musical meaning; Invented notation.