How to Hear Colors in Music

If you are a musician or if you are involved somehow in the music industry, chances are that you’ve heard more than once this expression “ …..and the orchestration was brilliant, those colors!!!….” Maybe this is the first time you hear about colors in music, either way I will try to give you a basic introduction on what is it when we talk about colors in music. Often, composers and orchestrators refer to colors in music when they are talking about a certain feeling or sensation in a specific piece of music. They use that expression to explain someone else what they did in that excerpt of music, how they worked on it, and why they did it that way. James Horner is a prominent film composer who recently scored the Avatar movie. I’ve seen a lot of his interviews and he always talk about how he combine colors to create a specific feeling or mood. Since the primary purpose of music in film is to serve the moving images, music colors have a very important role. The different combinations of musical instruments in a specific scene make it seem darker or more brilliant, sad or happy, it is just about how the composer combine the musical instruments to achieve the work of supporting the movie with music effectively. So, we can say that colors in music are based in how we combine the musical instruments.
Lets imagine we are orchestrators and we already know all the ranges of the instruments of a symphony orchestra (their highest notes and their lowest), we know how to balance the orchestra well in terms of which instruments sounds louder than the others naturally. We are going to orchestrate the music for the movie Cast Away, the main character is in an island and he just lost his best friend "Wilson” a volleyball that went away by accident at sea. He is crying and trying to reach the ball but it is moving away too fast, and the scene its 3 minutes long all about the main character trying to reach his best friend. We have to choose the right colors to support that scene, we suddenly think about something peaceful but sad not too much passion or hysterical attitude but with pain. We know that the oboe would be perfect as a melody carrier in its middle register because it has a warm sound. Next step is to compose a sad melody for the oboe that fits the scene (remember, middle register for warm quality) With the perfect accompaniment we could make that scene unforgettable . But what could be the accompaniment? As orchestrators we know that the brass family would be to loud for this scene and the woodwind family will sound too homogeneous to the solo oboe and the melody could be lost. The String Family could be our solution, they have a mellow sound, and played in a soft dynamic can let the oboe rise and sing above the entire section. But we need a deep sound to support the oboe since that scene definitely required it, we know that if we choose basses, cellos and violas in their lower register to create long harmonies could work.Violins in their higher register wouldn’t be very appropriate for this cue due to its brightness in their color, but maybe as unison with the viola section in a moderate register would create a richer sound.


So we can say that in this particular case the composer chose this 2 colors from the palette which is the symphony orchestra . That dark sound created by the lower strings its the first color and the oboe above the harmony the second color. Those 2 colors where chosen by the composer or orchestrator to support the scene effectively but a different composer could have picked another 2 colors or maybe add a third one. Maybe he could’ve had the solo trumpet as the melody and a combination of woodwinds and strings as the accompaniment. The cue will still be effective but it would evocate a different mood in the person. As you get more experience as a composer/orchestrator it will come to you naturally.Colors are sonorities, when we hear a flute in its high register and an oboe also in its high register we could tell them apart by their colors, the oboe will have a more nasal sound, that is their natural color while the flute sound is more sweet. Classical music composers like Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky are better known by their tremendous orchestrations. They knew the orchestra so well that they developed an incredible sensibility to sounds and colors, they could practically create anything they had in their minds.