Colour Production
Okay, here we go... What's your take on the rather elusive concept of colour? How do you interpret the term? How do you personally produce different colours? Which particular colours, and how do you go about producing each one? For example, if I said to you, 'Now, I'd like a beautiful deep purple', what would you do, short of playing the opening riff of Smoke On The Water?
Replies (19)
For myself, color in tone production is what a note or group of notes affects, the product of bow and finger pressure, dynamics, bowing speed, articulation, vibrato, discernment over position(s), and control of the instrument's resonance.
Eric
Sue, cool topic!
I think to play colors one has to be sensitive enough to feel a color. If we feel ambivalent about shades of blue, we can't be a channel for deep purple. (Luckily this means we don't have to have long scraggly hair. ;) Also if we dislike a certain color, we might not be willing to play it, or we might encounter tension.
Some visualization exercises are worthwhile. Say we're working with indigo, we have to imagine being suffused in that color, that *every* sense is experienced through a filter of indigo. If we can't visualize the color we can't play it.
The other thing I find fascinating is how many of my students hear Mozart, etc as yellow, and say Ravel Tzigane as black, but how many different interpretations each of them have for Bach. Peculiar.
The other thing is that if a student doesn't have control (to a degree) of the bow or feel stable with intonation and speeds of vibrato, they might have a harder time summoning real colors. The technique has to already be there, since this color discussion implies a fusion of left and right hand interpretation.
K
hmm, tzigane as black, for some reason i dont get that. For me its more of a powerful, deep red, almost rusty. I'm a strange audio/visual dont ask. For me its not visualizing color or anything its more just understanding the feeling the piece gives you and then making your sound as close as possible to that feeling.
well put, Owen! And yes, I would not think of Tzigane as black, deep reds and oranges and maybe the odd tinge of yellow and call me odd, but maybe even some greens and blues in there...
Doesn't that piece change colors throughout? I'd say it has it's own unique palette. Plus, each performer will add personal color. I'm going to go listen to it again...
it does change color a lot, i was thinking of the beginning when i said that, the second half is a whole different thing.
I don't think of Tzigane as black either, my students do. It may just be the way I play it!! yikes...
Certain Composers for me evoke certain colors...mozart always gets a sunny yellow, chopin gets a pale blue, brahms gets a deep, rich green, bach gets a dark blue. I think that Schnittke's stuff is pretty black in color....I always thought the Tzigane rhapsody to be a rusty orangy color. Mussorgsky gets the deep, blood red though.... Prokiev was always a puke, olivy green. Hovhanness is lavender...I have others just cant name them....
I'm with Emily and Owen on Tzigane; I was listening to Heifetz 1924 recording before I read this thread and I'd say it starts out dark (midnight blue and maybe a bit if black), but as a whole I think he covers most of the rainbow.
Back to the original topic: What I've been able to grasp of the color concept is about as ambiguous as that of 'interpretation'.
In my own attempt to better understand color, I often end my practices with 2 disparate scales (by my perception anyway).
Lately, it's been Gm/Bbm and DM. I always look at Gm as very dark and forboding, so I'll try to make it more so; Start with a slow vibrato (maybe even a double stop use of Bb and open D), and work my way up, playing with different bowings, etc. Then I'll go back and try to 'lighten' it; Use runs or some staccato, etc...
Likewise with DM, I try to make it sound as cheery and light as possible and then go back and try to darken it.
I use scales, because it is my belief that with actuall pieces, we have more of a pre-conception of what they should sound like whereas scales are more um...'raw material'...and it helps me because, frankly, I've never heard Heifetz or Perlman, et al, play just scales so I don't find myelf as prone to trying to copy them (conciously or subconciously).
This, of course, is a suppliment, not replacement of my more traditional practice (normal scales, etudes, etc...).
Just my 2 bits...
Would someone with more experience/talent care to comment?
Ryan
To simplify and distill, we have four strings; each string has its own unique timbre or "color," just like four different human voices in a quartet.This is a good starting point.
Szigeti and Baillot both explore these pallettes in their respective books - required reading!
This is what these notes are to me:
G=brown
D=green
A=red
E=yellow
I listened to the Ravel again. To me, the overall tone is Ruby Bronze like my nails. I would paint them this color before playing it. Just kidding. I can't play Tzigane!
ruby bronze is a good color, if any of you havn't heard Kogan's Tzigane you are missing out. I will post a link to an mp3 in a second.
actually i wont because its not there anymore
For me the question of color is inextricably entwined with tempo and emphasis of performed music. To begin with, what I personally hear in “good” music is a system of overlaid patterns of “emphasis”. To me, combinations of this pattern seem to recur in virtually every kind of music:, for examples: classical, Brazilian jazz, rock and roll, ragtime, fiddle tunes, country music, Greek, Polish, Scandinavian and many more kinds.
Simplistically, if emphasis meant only soft or loud, it would mean that the second of two successive divisions of music would receive more emphasis than the first. To illustrate, if the smallest division of music considered were ¼ bar, corresponding to the lowest pattern template would be soft for ¼ bar, loud for ¼ bar , soft, loud and so on. At the next level, the first half bar would receive less emphasis than the second and so on. The template repeats for whole bars, groups of two bars etc.. Of course one cannot put all these levels of emphasis in all the time but can put some of them in some of the time, and perhaps some all of the time. Points of emphasis that are performed hint at the missing ones just as some notes or melodies indicate possible harmonies or the presence of some harmonics of a note always make you perceive the fundamental. The result, to me is superimposed waves of emphasis that can reinforce or cancel. It seems to be permissible to miss members of templates but if emphasis is added at a point not in one of the templates, the effect seems to be “cognitively dissonant”.. In an orchestra, instruments/players typically deal with different levels of this pattern.
Of course emphasis is not just soft and loud. Here are some of the devices that I perceive can create the alternating layers of emphasis. For classical music, some of these may be considered “out of bounds”.
§ variation of loudness of individual notes
§ variation of loudness of note during its duration
§ variation in note separation
§ variation in rate of vibrato
§ variation in meter (tempo) of performance
§ variation of intonation of single note or relative intonation of groups of notes
§ variation of tonal quality by moving bow towards/away from bridge
§ use of ornaments
§ slight rubato between two successive notes(steal from one, give to the other)
§ in composition and improvisation, using higher notes following lower notes
§ trading of parts/voices between instruments of orchestra
§ altering the performance characteristics of repeated patterns of notes
§ use of body motion, light effects, snapping of fingers
§ for vocals, or spoken lines selecting words which provide alternating emphasis
§ use of accompaniment harmonies (chords), counter lines that result in alternating musical “tension”
To my ear, the modern groups “Abba” was especially good at using such alternating patterns of emphasis to create “beat”, expression and color in their music.
All these posts have been really interesting. To add a further question for the panel: Is colour just another word for phrasing?
in my opinion. No. Color is something you can use to embellish and decorate a phrase. It's a tool used to really shape the music and give it that extra depth. Phrasing can be done mechanicly, but I think true coloring is something that comes only with a performers experience and from their inner self that really makes the colors vibrant in a performance. I think it's a big combination of several things. Technique, musicality, it really depends on a particular performer I think, just like you could see all of our different responses on the colors we think Tzigane to be, and how a different performer might bring out those different colors.
Greetings,
I would like to see a point added to the idea that the four strings represent a different human voice (this has been a central tenet of the the great Bach interpreters- Enesco, Sziget , Szeryng etc) . That is, each finger has a differnt color on the same note, there fore great attention must be paid to selection.
One of the eareas of color I have the most trouble with is often the slow movements of Beethoven, especially the chamber music. Those beautiful themes (the spring for example) can be played in a variety of differnet shades depending on position and sdtring usage and deciding what to do, even before the quesiton of vibrato is terribly difficult.
Cheers,
Buri
Aside from possessing all the skills and making choices about phrasing and fingering, I think to feel/evoke colors you have to be totally sensitive, transparent, vulernable, empty, impressionable, spontaneous, whimsical, playful. Fluent and relaxed enough with the technique to let any combination of currents take you away.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think this is where the right brain jumps in...conjuring colors is the reward for practicing well.
If only I could get there more often...
k
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May 17, 2004 at 04:01 PM · Color for me means reading more into the music then just the notes. Color is a exactly that, a device you use "color" a piece of music. Vibrato for me is a color. Different speeds and widths create a different color. Different bowing techniques, like flautando and ponticello are different colors, dynamics and phrasing create different colors. I think that generally when people refer to a color in music they are referring to how and what you put into the music, not the notes on the page. I think I have "colors" when I play, but am still working on expanding my pallete.