THE COLORS OF VOICES
By
David Love
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Copyright ©2010 by David Love
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Dedication
I dedicate this writing to my mother and my friend, Jackie McCoy, and to the Oldies Show, my friends at Applebees, and my other close friends.
THE COLORS OF VOICES
Introduction
In 1979, in a fork lift accident on my grandfather's farm, I lost my senses of sight, smell, and taste, and suffered a brain injury as well. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I also gained something, something most people regard as remarkable if they believe me. It is something no one can see, smell, taste, or touch, but we all hear it. It is something I am so familiar with that it has become second nature to me.
I am talking about the colors of voices, the outline of a voice and how they are made up. There is no right or wrong answer to a voice color, and there is nothing good or bad about the color that the voice makes up. This is called synesthesia, colors and shapes, two senses somehow blending into one in the brain.
The idea of synesthesia was published for the first time as long ago as 1880 in an article by Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin. For a long time, researchers concluded that this was a fictitious phenomenon. However, current research shows that it is genuine. Researchers today believe that anywhere from one in 200 up to one in 100,000 has this unique ability.
Because I no longer rely on my sight, my hearing has become acute. I am also reliant on my memories from before my accident. These two attributes, hearing and memory, work together to provide the colors I hear in voices.
The first time I meet a person and hear his or her regular voice, I picture things in my mind concerning the voice, which I will go into later; but for now, I will say that all voices are based on the color white. Some show their whiteness more than others; it depends on the density of each voice. There are many white sounds, but the human voice is the original.
A doorbell's sound is red, always the same color for every doorbell that rings, even though its sound travels to the ear in two intervals: ding-dong. The second interval is darker than the first interval on the doorbell. If the sound were blue, the boundaries would be different. When I do hear a doorbell, I always think of Avon, or the song from Wizard of Oz, “Ding-Dong the Witch Is Dead”. A phone at the college I attended rang with a red sound. I answered that phone for the Development Department during lunch. The phone’s ring was red, but wet, as if it came from under the water, like bubbles coming from underneath the water. How I hear this, I do not know. Many people think of red as a color signifying danger, while green seems safer. Maybe we have come to these conclusions because of traffic lights. The sound of a phone ringing is only one sound, but the chimes that I have in my home make all sorts of sounds at once and they are all silver, no matter how the wind blows.
It is like tools being moved in a tool box, the bigger the box, the deeper silver sound you get. I remember a lot of tools are silver in color. If your chimes have different lengths and sizes, the more musical silver sound you get. Whatever strikes or rings has its own sound, and the sound has its own color. For example, if the chimes are made out of glass, this sounds blue. This sound by itself sounds like a music box. For me, all music boxes have the color sound blue, no matter what notes they play. Of course this is meant to relax you while you are listening. The frequency’s high notes of the music box give it the feel of the color blue. If the chimes are made out of wood, I picture percussion instruments like the wood block or castanets that make up the color brown, like some bark on the trees. A grandfather clock’s chimes sound gold, a regular size. The smaller the clock, the lighter the sound. The smaller sound has a white glow, making it gold-white. The big ones have a darker sound, gold-black. Of course the black glow is the size of the darker ring, even with the other notes that are audible. But on the piano each note has its own color. On the grandfather clock chimes make the sound, while a hammer with strings makes the piano’s noise. When I picture the grandfather clock in my head, I can see the pendulum gold, and the hands on the clock itself are gold, with a brown casing around it. This is the kind of grandfather clock I remember seeing back in the 1970's.
Sound travels differently for each color. It differs with the shape, width, length, narrowness, or wideness of the sound, but the echo in a sound has no effect on it. The voice, however, does.
I can tell when people I know are feeling under the weather because their voices are a little bit lower than usual and have a different quality to them, quieter. When people are under stress, I hear it in their voices, although there is sometimes confusion because laughing and crying sound alike. However, I have learned that, if I listen very, very closely, laughter does not last as long as crying.
Defining Colors
Within sound travels the light and energy of colors. Not the way sunlight travels, but the colors in the rainbow without light, the spectrum from sunlight, which includes red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. This is a refracting white light with a prism dissolving into its component attributes. It was discovered by Sir Isaac Newton in his 1666 to 1672 experiments. Before, everyone thought color was a mixture of light and darkness and that prisms were colored light. The color theory scale that went from brilliant red appeared to be pure white light with the least amount of darkness added, and then to dull blue. This appeared to be the last step before black, which was the dead end, where light is extinguished by darkness. Now, thanks to Newton, we know that light alone is responsible for color.
With light, there are different wave lengths: x-rays, ultraviolet, infrared, microwave, and radio waves. Then you have the different kinds of lamps, like the Tungsten lamp, and common ordinary light bulbs, also the fluorescent lamps, and the tube light bulbs, and arc lamps, the neon, mercury, or other gas filled lamps. You cannot perceive the light that I am using since is not apparent to the eye. Light is not the same to the ear.
To understand, you must consider the wavelength interval and frequency interval of colors. The wavelength interval has to do with the distance traveled, like throwing a rock in to the pond. Wavelength intervals are measured in nanometers, abbreviated nm. Frequency means the number of occurrences of a repeated event per unit. The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeated event and is, therefore, the reciprocal of the frequency. It is measured in hertz, abbreviated Hz, or terahertz, THz. Now, here are the colors with the different wavelengths intervals, and the different frequency intervals:
Red wavelength interval is 700-630 nm, and the frequency interval is 430-480 Hz.
For the color orange, the wavelength interval 630-590 nm, and the frequency interval is 480-510 THz.
Yellow has a wavelength interval of 590-560 nm, and the frequency interval is 510-540 THz.
For green, the wavelength interval is 560-490 nm, and the frequency interval is 540-610 THz.
Blue is 490-450 nm, and 610-670 THz.
Violet is 450-400 nm, and 670-750 THz.
Sunlight is a form of energy. We feel how warm the sun is outside, especially in August. The color, wavelength, frequency and energy of light are composed of particles called photons. The visible light of electromagnetic radiation is the atom. Electrons moving in orbits that go around the nucleus of an atom are arranged in different energy levels within their electron clouds. By this, the electron can gather other energy from outside sources of electromagnetic radiation. This graduates to a higher energy level.
Higher energies are thought of as having shorter wavelengths and lower energies are thought of as having higher wavelengths. The energy of a photon is linked proportionally to its frequency and, inversely, is proportional to its wavelength. Very high frequency electromagnetic radiation, like gamma rays, X-rays, and ultraviolet light, is controlled by very short wavelengths and, therefore, a great deal of energy. Then you have lower frequency radiation, like the visible, infrared, microwave, and radio waves, all having greater wavelengths, but matching the lower frequencies and energy.
Electromagnetic radiation is built up by its wavelength or frequency and its intensity. The wavelength reaches the visible spectrum and then you can see the visible light. This is equal to 380 nm to 740 nm. A lot of the light sources get in at many different wavelengths, a source's spectrum giving its intensity at each wavelength. The given direction of the light to the eye determines the color sensation. Also, in that same direction, are many more possible spectral combinations than color sensations. If there is a low intensity on the color, orange-yellow will be brown. A low intensity on yellow-green will result in olive-green. An object’s color depends on much more than its viewer’s eye and brain; it is also due to the physics of the object itself and its environment.
The reflective properties of the surface of an object work hand in hand with the angles of illumination to determine the color of the object. The spectrum of the light depends on how much light an object reflects and contextual cues being relatively constant. This is called color constancy. There are two types: absorbed and opaque and they each determine the way the light makes the objects appear.
It has been estimated that there are about 10 million colors perceivable by a human being, but more than 16 million colors in existence. Take, for example, blue-yellows or red-greens. These colors are opposite of each other and make up the basis of color vision. Ewald Hering was the first to come up with color vision back in the 19th century. He developed a color chart on which all colors are derived from a measure of green, red, blue, and yellow with varied brightness. To shade a color, to make it darker, you add black; to add a tint to a color and make it lighter, you add white. Thus, the value of each color will be lighter or darker.
The Eye
It is important to consider how light travels through the eye in order to determine the color of an object. “Perfect vision,” or normal visual acuity, is determined to be 20:20, which basically means that one can clearly see at a distance of 20 feet what one should see at that distance. When wavelengths are visible light to a human eye, the range perceived is around 390nm to 750hm.
Focusing on the part of the eye that deals with light, the outer layer is called the cornea. This is a dome shaped structure at the front of the eye that allows light to enter the eye. Together with the lens, the cornea helps focus and direct light onto the retina, which I will discuss further below.
The iris is the middle layer of the eye, or the colored part of the eye. It controls the size of the pupil, the black area in the center of the iris. If you walk outside in bright sunlight, the iris reduces the pupil’s size to restrict the amount of light entering the eye. If you enter a dark room, the iris opens up the pupil to allow more light in.
The lens is a clear, flexible structure that changes shape so that you can focus on objects at different distances. When you look at objects that are far away in the distance, the ciliary muscles in the eye relax, making the lens thinner. When you inspect an object up close, the lens becomes thicker and curved and the ciliary muscles shrink in size.
The vitreous humor is located behind the lens. It is a jelly-like substance that fills in the back of the eye, helping it to keep its shape and aiding in the transmission of light.
The choroid is a membrane found before the retina. It contains a lot of blood vessels that bring oxygen and nutrients to the retina. This highly pigmented part of the eye helps to take in the light and prevent it from scattering.
Now we get to the inner layer of the eye, the retina. It outlines the back of the eye and is highly light-sensitive with millions of cells called photoreceptors. Each photoreceptor connects to a nerve fiber and all the nerve fibers form the optic nerve. There are two photoreceptors: the rods and cones. The rods are more sensitive than the cones, but they are not sensitive to color. The cones determine color receptivity. Color blindness results when a person is lacking some of the cones that are normally present in the eye. Even missing just one cone will diminish color receptivity. Red and green are the most common colors involved in color blindness.
One part of the photoreceptors is the macula, a small area of the retina that has a high concentration of cone cells. It gives you sharp central vision. Once an image is picked up by the photoreceptors, the information is changed to nerve impulses by the optic nerve and sent to the brain.
There are three types of color receptor cells or cones in the retina. First are the short-wavelength cones that make the color violet visible, with wavelengths around 420nm. Sometimes they are misleadingly called the blue cones. The second and third are closely related. The long-wavelength cones make the color red visible and are very sensitive to light. Interestingly enough, this visible light is perceived as yellowish-green wavelengths around 564nm. Then come the middle-wavelength cones, the wavelengths around 534nm also sometimes misleadingly called the green cones because in the visible light they are perceived as green. These three types of cones send out three signals, making three locations and three color components in the eye, sometimes called tristimulus values. If the middle-wavelength cones are activated in the present moment, the other cones take part in it too, but only to a certain degree.
After the color goes through the eye, the information of the color is communicated to the brain by three contending processes. First is the red-green channel. Second is the blue-yellow channel, and finally the black-white channel, making it the luminance channel. Therefore, the eye the red-green value is more visible than the others.
With respect to the colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, you cannot see the light in these colors that I use because they are not being determined by eyesight. As I said before, light is not the same to the ear. It may help if you imagine the sound of a penny dropping. You probably “see” a falling brown coin with Lincoln's picture on it. The exact distance it falls is unknown if you cannot see it, but the sound is still very distinct in the mind.
Similarly, if you hear a nail being driven into a board, you may imagine that nail is silver as many nails are that color. Nails come in different sizes, yet they are virtually always the same shape. If you put together a puzzle, you use pieces of different shapes, but they are typically all about the same size. A collection of rocks, on the other hand, usually includes specimens of different colors, shapes, sizes, and forms. It is the same with voices. They have many similarities that are useful for comparison, but are all very different, too.
How the Colors Are Made Up In the Sound of the Voice
Color has three parts to it: the hue, the value, and the density. Coupled with their lightness or darkness, the different color shades, there are actually many possible colors within any one color. The three primary colors are blue, red, and yellow, and sometimes white is considered a primary color (it is also referred to as a neutral). Green is a secondary color, composed of blue and yellow, two of the primary colors. When you mix a primary with a secondary color you get what is called a tertiary color. Yellow-orange and blue-purple are tertiary colors.
Everything I’ve spoken of up to now contributes to the sound of a voice. A voice has wave, shape, and form to it. My way of looking at the hue, value, and the density is likely different than the way you, being a sighted person, understand it—if you think about it at all. You may know that hue, value, and density make up color, but not sound, and you probably have not ever thought of the color of a voice. When you hear a voice, however, it has a color with all three color attributes. Incidentally, a voice’s colors do not have anything to do with the color of the skin of the person speaking, only the voice itself. There are silver voices here and half way across the world from us. The darkest voice I ever heard was Darth Vader’s voice in the Star Wars film. It was black, but not because James Earl Jones is African-American. Rather, it was due to its hue, density, and value. Interestingly, it was black only when he portrayed Darth Vader. When Jones is not Vader, his voice is a very deep blue.
Every voice has its own unique sound of colors. We know orange is the true color of orange because the fruit, orange, is orange. It could just as well be red. The sound of the voice relates to our recollections of the things in our past, things that continue to appear as images in the mind. For example, if you hear wind chimes, your mind may immediately see a particular wind chime that your best friend once owned. This is because they are familiar and have become a mental reference.
Sound waves to the ears can be loud or soft in value, hue, and density, depending how far they have traveled, for each person focuses on sounds differently. Certain sounds hit fourteen different locations in the pinna. The pinna is the visible part of the ear, also called the auricle. The higher a sound the more it is focused in the middle of the pinna. A yellow voice is directed toward the middle, but a blue-black voice is farther on the other side of the pinna, because of how low it is.
Starting with the middle is a yellow voice in the first location in the pinna. This is the highest sound can go in color. The best way that I can describe this is to compare it to a dart board. Look on each side of the bull's-eye. Imagine the yellow sound is a circle starting with lightest shade you can visualize. The more you go outward on the dart board, the darker yellow becomes. A male’s and a female’s yellow voices are found in different places on the dart board. The male voice is darker yellow and the female voice lighter. But on the dart board, this can go with any color.
The second location is gold. There are many shades of those colors as well. After gold, the third in line is orange. The fourth is red, the fifth pink, sixth purple, and seventh blue. Then comes turquoise as eighth, ninth green and tan is tenth. Eleven is brown, twelve is black, thirteen gray, and finally, white comes in at fourteen. All sounds are created from white, which is similar to radio static or television snow. This sound is gray-white. It has an interesting sound like light white mixing with very dark gray, and a very dark white mixing with a light gray. Here is how it connects. Very deep dark gray is in the thirteenth location and connects with the twelfth location black, and the light gray in the thirteenth location connects with the fourteenth location white.
Let me explain further. From this chart, you can mix two locations together, like a blue-tan voice. A magenta color then will fit in the fourth and sixth, red-purple locations. If the voice is forest, or lime, this will fit in the ninth green location. My mind can relate to forest green and lime green because it is something that I remember back when I could see. A cherry red voice is darker than a fire engine red. Some voices will fit in one location, and others take two or three color locations, or sometimes four, depending on the mixtures of the colors of the hue and value. Take again a dartboard, for one voice. If it is green-black, then the center is black and around the bulls eye is green. If it is black-green, it is vice versa. If the center is pink and yellow surrounds the bull’s-eye, it will make a yellow-pink. If someone has magenta in the center, ocean-blue is around it. If it is magenta on the outside, it’s auburn in the middle. The color of your voice is not good or bad. Your sound is your voice color, and your voice color is your sound, the sound of your color.
Color Layers of Sound and the Shape of a Voice
As I have explained, there are three main components of color and, likewise, three main parts of the colors of voices. It helps to consider each part separately:
1. The hue
The hue is home base for the regular voice. It has a fixed color to it that does not change. The sounds you make when you speak go in and out through the hue, as well as through the material and nature elements of the voice. I will explain the nature and material elements later. The hue is located in the center of the voice and is shaped somewhat like a triangle, except that it lacks the bottom line. On each side of the slanted lateral lines, imagine a square shape, but don't include the top lines of the squares. This is what I am talking about when I refer to the shape of a voice, by its sound. The shape is always unique in itself. I will refer to the hue as a triangle. So it will be the “triangle hue”.
The second layer of the hue has a picture of what a person likes, like a guitar, and even has a word that describes him or her, such as charisma. You find an individual’s personality in the color of their voice. This is the key element to the voice. The colors that you like and I like are two different things.
Blue can be negative or positive. The negative side is like a frosty pale blue, like in the winter months when you look through a frosted window at the sky. The positive blue is easy going. Just like I said, someone may like cold weather, and some don't. Someone told me that they do not like the color blue, makes him think of being sad. For me, the positive blue is like the sky, or the blue ocean. Negative blue is cold weather, (I hate cold weather). So for me, positive blue is ocean blue, as frosty blue is negative.
There is a positive and negative sound for each color in the personality of the voice. Yellow is very pleasing to the mind, very sunny and cheerful. Yellow is a warm color, but ugly mustard yellow is of course negative. For example, a lot of people like mustard, but of course some don't. In this case, this is a negative yellow mustard to me. So a negative yellow will hang out with other negative colors, or also for example, a sunny positive yellow will hang out with other positive colors. I am a positive blue-black voice, by this I like the blue ocean, and love listening to night sounds at night during the summer time, and this equals blue-black. The voice color is handed down from generation to generation; I will go in to this later. So for example, I will hang out with someone that has a blue positive voice, but dating, the female must have a red voice, I will go in to this later too.
I don't clash too well with negative personality colors. Someone that I don't get along with has a negative personality sounding voice, but they think they are positive, and you are negative, but you think you are positive. It takes all kinds to make a world.
Colors have a warm and cool feeling to them. Warm colors are red, pink, orange, gold, and yellow. Cool colors are green, blue, and purple. Neutral colors are black, white, gray, and brown; also, tan and silver. Mixed cool-warm colors are turquoise, lavender, and magenta. All the pastel colors, pale soft colors or vibrant colors have to do with brightness, as well as the rich deep dark colors. All colors have negative and positive voice energy personality sound. There is no in between, either negative or positive. The only negative voice in this book is the first voice study.
You might know someone that has a green personality sound in their voice, and you don't get along to well. Think of something green, that you do not like. For me, it is peas (Jolly Green Giant). When I was five years old, I got to know the kitchen very well, because I would not eat five peas on my plate at the dinner table, and to this very day I still don't like them. I do like the color olive green. The reason is because the olive branch symbolizes peace. I always relate to what I like or don't like by the color, even if it is in the same shade in the color (positive or negative). Positive is what I like (olive green) and negative (pea green) is what I do not like, but for someone else, it will be different, especially if they have a negative personality energy sounding voice. I do know the 2 colors, pea green, and olive green but the word that describes the color has a great impact of how I feel about the color.
2. The value
This is the second layer, outside of the triangular hue. It has its own color, separate from the hue. It also has a shape to it. The shape for a male is square. Females have a circular shape. The square and the circle are not perfect by any means.
The value is the depth of the color of the voice, like the light and darkness. It has to do with the way the person thinks and their actions and reactions, how they feel about things, and the mood that they are in at any given time when they speak. Lying, smiling, and sadness show in the voice. With these emotions, the sound of the voice fluctuates. The sound of sadness is slower than happiness, which is literally upbeat. As I’ve said, rhythm is the key word.
But through this lightness or darkness shows another thing that comes from the hue; it is like a covering element over the nature and material elements that does not change color. Some of these elements are shadows, glowing, shining, et cetera. Each person only has one of these. This element mixes well with the light and darkness in a voice, making it one whole sound, but not exactly. It is unique for each person.
The first half of a word in a sentence emits a nature element similar to a river, rocks, the wind, or fire, a thing that is not man-made. Everyone has his or her own nature element. In a voice study I will refer to later, the nature element is fire. At the end of that word can be heard the sound of a material element, which is an object, something like a door, man-made. It reveals the things the speaker likes to do, such as watching movies. If that is indeed the case, the material element might be a DVD or blue ray disc. Everyone has their own material element. In the first of my voice studies, which I present later, the material element is a diamond, like a diamond ring or necklace. The nature and material elements do not interfere with the color of the voice. I picture in my mind what the person likes to do.
3. The Density
Density rests outside the sounds and shapes of the voice. It is white; all voices are based on it. It is what makes up the sound and shape of the voice. This is where your true self lies and your secrets, the things you keep to yourself, including the positive or negative perceptions you have of what others think of you and how you feel about yourself. Density might reveal a healthy ego or low self esteem. Its sound arises very, very quickly, when a person swallows or takes a breath while talking. A second of silence, too, affects density.
At this point it is important that I clarify more about the hue, value, and density in different situations. Let’s say, for example, that there is a person that you do not know very well, but see often, perhaps briefly every day or so, like a fellow student in one of your classes, or a co-worker. This person cannot speak English very well. I had a friend like this in college and there was also another student from the same country. The two of them spoke their native language to each other, and although I didn’t know the words, the same color tone from my friend's voice still was still apparent to me. Even now if he came up to me and started speaking in his native tongue, I would know him by his color.
To reiterate, the hue is always the same. The density reveals the state of mind, negative or positive. The value shows how a person feels at the time he is speaking, physically. Does he or she have a headache? Has he or she suffered a breakup with a boyfriend or a girlfriend? These things are evident in the sound, how quickly it travels back and forth in the value. The feeling in your voice you cannot hide, especially from a person who knows you well.
If a particular feeling comes to you when your friend speaks to you, this is called “reversed feelings.” If you are speaking over a telephone, you can often pick up signals that something significant is affecting your friend. For example, his breathing may be slower, which is an indication of sadness (unless he is crying).
Sentences and Words and Music Notes
1. Activator
Because a person is breathing while speaking, you hear breaks and pauses with their air intake and outflow. The frequency and duration of these breaks varies by person and in relation to their heart’s rate. The Activator is apparent within the first few sentences one speaks and influences their density. Their color is always constant throughout the sentence or sentences, along with the value, nature, material, that connects together well. While taking a breath, a quick second of silence breaks the string in the color and in the sound or silence of the voice. Remember, the density is the white sound or silence to the voice.
When reading from a book, it occurs always after one sentence. When your voice sounds out a B, and a P, or the letter T, you halt your airstream. When the air comes back out, it will make varying degrees of sharpness in a sound. To say a V or a J, the airstream causes vibration. Each letter has its own air path of colors, too, but they are not apparent or clear until the sound goes through their value.
2. Amplifier
Your mouth, how wide you open it, causes your lips to make different shapes like wide open, closed, pursed, or stretched, and they all create different sounds. The Amplifier works very closely with the value and with the light and the dark, the brightness and the dullness. It controls how loudly you talk and the raising or lowering of your voice. This is the value of the voice.
When making the sound "ah" as in ostrich, you lower your jaw and your tongue. Amplification also depends how much the jaws are open.
3. Resonator
This has to do with the mouth and sinus cavities. This is the way your mouth is shaped and the passageway through which the voice resonates coming out of the mouth. How wide you open your mouth causes your lips to make different shapes like wide open, closed, pursed, or stretched, and they all create different resonance. When making the sound “ah” as in ostrich, you lower your jaw and tongue. Amplification and resonance depend on how wide the jaws are open. When sounding out consonants, the sound is affected by various movements of the tongue and lips. To sound out a vowel sound, such as "ee" as in three, the tongue moves toward the front of your palate, which widens the pharyngeal cavity; this also raises the larynx slightly. The throat and sinuses affect your talking voice. There is pressure on the color tone if your throat is sore or your sinuses congested. This will affect the resonance of your voice. You voice has less energy and is slower. A voice in any kind of pain is uneven.
The teeth also affect the voice. When you have a tooth pulled or have dentures, it will affect your voice.
Smoking changes the voice, too, especially with respect to breathing, the Activator. It affects the value, but the hue stays the same. Smoking makes a voice darker, but not unattractive. It actually gives it a wondering tone in my opinion.
There are three main levels to the voice.
down
regular
upper
These levels differ from person to person. A voice can go two steps up from its home base, but only the value changes. Rhythm is again the key word. When the voice comes out in a slower rhythm or a faster rhythm, you know something is up.
The first level is the scream, the farthest the voice can go—and the loudest. It is difficult to say words while screaming. A scream has gold in it, almost yellow. In fact, a scream for everybody is yellow. Yellow, to me, is the top color, the brightest color you can see, except for white, which is not applicable to voice level. Like a traffic light, yellow means beware, pay attention, danger is near, or it indicates surprise.
Below screaming is the level of yelling. Yelling uses your regular voice, except the volume from the value very quickly into the hue and out. Within the yelling range fits the crying voice you hear between sobs. These too have a yellow sound, but crying is a paler yellow than screaming. If someone talks between tears however, the voice is shaky, almost like being underwater, but the color does not change.
Below yelling, is the angry voice. The volume is down a little, but the voice is a full step above the regular voice. I think of red, like danger on the way or a red stop sign, but the voice does not show it. Also, below the yelling, you find the level that is used when you are excited or amazed. It uses less volume, but is much brighter by a half-step to a full step, depending on the situation. This is evident within the value and in how quickly the voice goes in and out of the hue. The nature and material elements are still there in the voice in the very note where this voice starts in the regular voice, and where it jumps up, by half a step or a full step. However, the color of the hue stays the same and whatever is said comes back down to the regular voice. Below the happy voice is the regular home base voice. The next level down is the moaning sound like one makes when in pain, physically or mentally. This is the same tone that your voice is tuned to, but the volume is a lot softer. This is very interesting because it is your regular voice, but without words.
In a whisper, the hue true color is formed, plus in the value it is very soft, but the nature and material elements are still there, for whatever is said.
Starting down from the regular voice is the voice that reveals sadness or feeling “under the weather.” A headache and stress meet at the same level, but usually a pain sound is with the headache. You cannot tell when a person has a cold or a sore throat. It depends how well you know the person. But the voice will either be above or below the home base voice.
For example, when you travel on an airplane, the middle ear gets stopped up. The middle ear is like an air pocket that does not like changes in air pressure. Chewing gum, yawning, or swallowing can offer relief. The popping sound that you hear after doing these things is actually from an air bubble that comes from the back of your nose. It travels through the Eustachian tube, which connects the back of the nose to the middle ear. I will explain this later on. When someone is stressed or in pain, their words come out slower. The next level has to do with being worn out. When tired, often very late at night, my voice slows down. Below that is the sound of being “not happy” to see you. At the bottom is sadness.
The words you say have their own colors, which reside within the material and nature elements. This is the final level to the material and nature elements. Words do not cancel out the voice’s essential color, or the material and nature elements. The color of the words is in the first layer of the hue. In singing, each note you sing has a color of its own, too; so, we get the hue of the voice, the colors of the words, and the colors of the notes. Also, different rhythms are at work simultaneously. You have just the talking rhythm, and the singing rhythm voice. The singing voice must flow with the music and the notes while the talking rhythm must follow words.
For example, a reddish pink voice sings a D above middle C.
The note is black in sound. If the word sung is “table,” I picture a table that is brown, light and dark-striped, because in my childhood there was such a table in the kitchen I remember best. Not all tables are brown in color, of course, but that is the first table I remember, so it affects the word color. The old saying that a picture has a thousand words comes to bear here. Every image we can imagine is rooted in our memories, which conjure up images. Every image means something different to each of us.
Letters alone have color. In the above example, the whole word “table” is brown, but when you spell it out, each letter has its own color. T is gray, A is white, B is brown, and L is a deeper white than A— with a touch of gray in it. E is white as the snow (see chart below). The shapes of these letters are the typical shapes of letters as you know them. But when you hear the letters in color, it is called Synesthesia.
This is the way I see the alphabet. You may want to mark this page because I will be referring to this list later.
List of Letters and Music Notes in Colors
A. white
A sharp very light yellow
B. brown
C. gold
C sharp tan
D. black
D sharp pale orange
E. white as snow, but on piano it is blue
F. off-green, in between green and black
F sharp is silver
G. mint green,
G sharp red,
H. gold
I. off-black
J. red
K. black off white
L. middle white
M. dark brown as a dark wooden door
N. off-gold
O. mediocre white
P. gold-orange
Q. silver-gray
R. red, like cellophane paper
S. off-white with a touch of gray
T. gray-black
U. cloudy gray
V. emerald green
W. black as midnight
X. off-green, with different colors of green running through it
Y. yellow-brown
Z. gray-black, with a hint of white wandering through it
In the word “blue,” you actually imagine the color blue, lighter or darker, depending on your own concept of it, but the letters in this word each carry their own colors and affect the meaning. In the word “and,” the colors are white, gold, and black. The acronym “D.N.A.” is actually the reverse: black, gold, and white. The “i” is silent in the word “piece,” but it still resides within the word. However, verbally it does not show up at all.
The name Shawn sounds green to me but may have a yellow-gold voice. Cathy sound red to me, but she might have a purple-red voice. The colors are not good or bad. The narrowness, width, deepness, and length give shape to the letter sounds and the syntax and diction.
With Synesthesia, even numbers have their own colors. The following list represents my mind seeing numbers.
Number chart
1. shadowy black
2. gray-white
3. glowing in the light, but is dark red
4. gold that stands out
5. cool black
6. army green, deep green
7. off-gold
8. black as midnight
9. shadowy fading gold that stands off by itself
10. mediocre blue
11. black as black can go
12.
concrete gray