Buffalo Theory revisited
For the past few weeks, I've been a little bit stuck on how to move Buffalo Theory (what I'm calling the system of color coordination to music pitches) forward. After several failed, but fun(!), attempts at making paintings that show some kind of structure, I've put it on hold until this very moment!
It just occurred me that I've been looking at colors for some kind of left-to-right linear system, but this is all wrong. As I've ever supposed, the dimension I should be thinking about is foreground/background!!! This is difficult to translate into music, since there "is no foreground because it's a sound, silly" but you can easily think of it as "what you're immediately listening to vs. what you're not." For instance, Michael Bolton singing- you're not really listening to the drums or the bass line, but instead Michael's silky sandpaper voice. Something, including cultural context, must be informing you, the listener, that this is the part that should pop out.
The same happens in paintings. Take a painting of a room, with a table and a bowl of fruit for instance. Through clever illusions, the painter makes the appearance of height and depth. In reality, there is just a darker paint in just the right shape next to a lighter color of paint. But the lighter paint by the darker paint "seems closer" and similarly, the the lighter paint overhangs another color by the tiniest fraction, it suddenly "must be in front of" the background color. Yellow and orange even seem to stand in front of greens and blues. (Depending on context, of course. It can go the other way, but this is "generally speaking.")
When I have been analyzing the color spots I've made, I've only considered a linear relationship. But now it makes sense! I've been trying to argue that the Major 3rd is technically dissonant, (because my theory depends on it!) but I think it would be more proper to say that it is more "foreground" which is a "type of dissonance." If C was yellow, E would be red, and this is a striking juxtoposition. But a C major chord would then be "yellow, red, yellow-orange." The red, is well padded by the yellowish colors and leaps out from them. The yellow and yellow-orange create a background. Incidentally, the C and E (y and r) are all that you need to imply a major chord. The G (y-o) just fills it out.
This explains the trouble of the striking color for the simple chords. Further, it explains why chromatic passing notes in Bach chorales because so outlandishly stark, and why the leading tone jumps out from a sea of homogeneous tonality. It is because that's what you hear! And so, that's what you see.
It just occurred me that I've been looking at colors for some kind of left-to-right linear system, but this is all wrong. As I've ever supposed, the dimension I should be thinking about is foreground/background!!! This is difficult to translate into music, since there "is no foreground because it's a sound, silly" but you can easily think of it as "what you're immediately listening to vs. what you're not." For instance, Michael Bolton singing- you're not really listening to the drums or the bass line, but instead Michael's silky sandpaper voice. Something, including cultural context, must be informing you, the listener, that this is the part that should pop out.
The same happens in paintings. Take a painting of a room, with a table and a bowl of fruit for instance. Through clever illusions, the painter makes the appearance of height and depth. In reality, there is just a darker paint in just the right shape next to a lighter color of paint. But the lighter paint by the darker paint "seems closer" and similarly, the the lighter paint overhangs another color by the tiniest fraction, it suddenly "must be in front of" the background color. Yellow and orange even seem to stand in front of greens and blues. (Depending on context, of course. It can go the other way, but this is "generally speaking.")
When I have been analyzing the color spots I've made, I've only considered a linear relationship. But now it makes sense! I've been trying to argue that the Major 3rd is technically dissonant, (because my theory depends on it!) but I think it would be more proper to say that it is more "foreground" which is a "type of dissonance." If C was yellow, E would be red, and this is a striking juxtoposition. But a C major chord would then be "yellow, red, yellow-orange." The red, is well padded by the yellowish colors and leaps out from them. The yellow and yellow-orange create a background. Incidentally, the C and E (y and r) are all that you need to imply a major chord. The G (y-o) just fills it out.
This explains the trouble of the striking color for the simple chords. Further, it explains why chromatic passing notes in Bach chorales because so outlandishly stark, and why the leading tone jumps out from a sea of homogeneous tonality. It is because that's what you hear! And so, that's what you see.