# Colour-Music: The Art of Mobile Color/Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII
EFFECTS PRODUCED BY COLOUR-MUSIC
COLOUR and sound cannot, of course, be adequately described in words, nevertheless at this stage it may be as well to attempt to give some idea of the kind of effects produced by the colour-organ.
Imagine a darkened concert-room. At one end there is a large screen of white drapery in folds surrounded with black and framed by two bands of pure white light. Upon this we will suppose, as an example of a simple colour composition, that there appears the faintest possible flush of rose colour, which very gradually fades away while we are enjoying its purity and subtlety of tint, and we return to darkness. Then, with an interval, it is repeated in three successive phases, the last of which is stronger and more prolonged.
While it is still lingering upon the screen a rapid series of touches of pale lavender notes ​of colour begin to flit across it, gradually strengthening into deep violet. This, again becomes shot with amethyst, and afterwards, changing gradually into a broken tint of ruby, gives a return to the warmer tones of the opening passage.
A delicate primrose now appears, and with little runs and flushes of pulsation leads through several passages of indescribable cinnamon colour to deep topaz. Then suddenly interweavings of strange green and peacock-blue, with now and then a touch of pure white, make us seem to feel the tremulousness of the Mediterranean on a breezy day, and as the colour deepens there are harmonies of violet and blue-green which recall its waves under a Tramontana sky. More and more powerful they grow, and the eye revels in the depth and magnificence of the colour as the executant strikes chord after chord amongst the bass notes of the instrument.
Then suddenly the screen is again dark, and there is only a rhythmic and echoing beat of the dying colour from time to time upon it. At last this disappears also, and ​there is another silent pause, then one hesitating tint of faded rose as at the opening of the composition.
Upon this follows a stronger return of the colour, and as the screen once more begins to glow with note after note of red and scarlet, we are prepared for the rapid crescendo which finally leads up to a series of staccato and forte chords of pure crimson which almost startle us with the force of their colour before they die away into blackness.
This is an extremely simple example, but it may suffice to show the kind of effect produced by an unadorned form of mobile colour not accompanied by music.
Let us now try to obtain some idea of a colour-music composition associated with music. It was found after the first experiments that the beauty of colour compositions could be felt and appreciated without any musical accompaniment, but that, in some cases, it added greatly to their interest.
We will suppose for the moment an orchestral composition as being accompanied by colour. Let us assume that the composition ​opens with a Wagnerian trumpet-blast. The screen is at the same moment flooded by an intense orange which palpitates with the harmonic colours corresponding to a subordinate passage upon some of the other orchestral instruments. The blast ceases, there is a faint echo of it upon the violins while the screen pulsates with pale lemon and saffron, hardly discernible. Again comes the blare of the trumpets, and once more the screen flames with orange modulations.
This is the opening, let us say, of a passage of pathetic character in which accidentals often intervene and the key tends to become minor. The colour scheme, without being a direct translation, sympathizes with this—it is low in tone and shows slight discords, and then gradually in consonance with the sound-music develops a more joyous character. At last a modified form of the opening phrase is again reached both in sound and colour. This leads to fresh departures, and so the dual composition proceeds.
It might be tedious to describe it further, but this may suffice to give an idea of one ​kind of partnership which can be established between colour and sound.
So far, however, we have only considered the simple admixture of varying colour upon the screen by means of the first form of the colour-organ. This does not, however, by any means exhaust the resources of the instrument or the possibilities opened up by mobile colour. A few instances may be given of other ways in which the actual colour effects can be produced.
Let us imagine a low-toned tint upon the screen. Upon this is thrown a single spot of some other colour. That spot can be kept stationary or it can be made to move. It can be equal in intensity or can have a focussing point of brilliancy within it. If it moves it can be made to move rapidly or slowly, and. if it moves very rapidly it will produce the effect upon the eye of a line or a pattern. ​Other spots may be added to it, also stationary, or in slow or rapid movement, and if in movement these movements may be in some sort of harmony or inter-relation.
Again reverting to our simple tint of colour upon the screen, we may imagine a second colour being thrown upon it and a net or reticulated diaphragm interposed in the path of the rays. The result will be that a portion of the second colour will be cut off by the solid parts of the net or diaphragm, and an interweaving of two colours, partly mingled and partly separated, will appear. If a third set of rays of different colours be projected upon it at the same time from another angle, there will, of course, be a mingling of three separate colours.
This on a large scale is very much what happens when the three primary colours are mingled in microscopically small dots by the three-colour printing process, but there is this important difference that each of two, three, or more interwoven colours can be instantaneously altered by the executant seated at the key-board.
Part of the "action" of a keyboard colour-organ, with colour-producing diaphragms removed.
In cold print all this sounds mere assertion, but I can only ask the reader to believe that the colour actually produced is far more beautiful than can be imagined or described. The screen itself may also take various forms in order to resolve and break up the colours. I have experimented with various substances. and materials, with opaque white drapery, combined with gauze veils at various distances, and other arrangements, in order to produce different effects. If it is wished still further to elaborate the complexity of the colour, the diaphragms can be made to move, and very remarkable results are produced by these movements. Some idea may be formed of them by imagining the delicate markings upon a shell to be seen in process of rapid formation and disappearance, by the movements of currents and eddies upon the surface of running water, and to some extent by the changing forms of a fleecy sky.
​Advancing further in the direction of colour effects with a certain amount of form in them, it may be interesting to refer to another series of experiments which I have carried out.
It occurred to me that it might be interesting to substitute what are known as the "Watts-Hughes" sound-forms for the diaphragms above referred to, or to project the "Watts- Hughes" forms upon the screen in simple black and white at the same time as the colour tints. These sound forms are produced by causing musical notes to act upon films of liquid water-colour spread upon glass plates. When a musical note, or a series of musical notes, is played by a rather loud-sounding musical instrument, or sung by the human voice through a suitable trumpet placed close to one of these liquid films, the colour arranges itself in strange and decorative patterns upon the glass. The effects obtained upon the screen by interposing these plates are beautiful, but it would seem difficult to make use of them in writing a colour composition, though perhaps further experiment may show this to be possible.
Portion of a three-colour instrument.
There are various other ways of modifying the colour effects upon the screen, which may perhaps some day be employed in orchestral compositions, but for the present it would seem preferable to adhere to the simpler methods of direct projection and admixture of colour, with but occasional use of form.
Some reference has been made to modifications of the screen, i.e. the reflecting surface upon which the colour is received.
The simplest form of screen is a plain flat surface of white, like that used for a projection ​lantern—but many advantages are obtained by varying this.
If the white drapery is hung in folds instead of being tightly stretched, the effects of colour upon it are more interesting because they have more "quality" in them; and substances with a certain amount of texture, like white velvet, are better than absolutely smooth ones. The screen may also be modified by layers of white cords at a little distance from it, hung vertically, and this gives a very remarkable resolution of the compound tints. There are other modifications about which nothing further need now be said.
Thus far we have considered the production of colour-music by one, or at most two executants, but great variety and splendour of effects could be obtained by the use of several mobile colour-instruments used simultaneously.
Simple form of screen as used in the author's studio.
As a partial explanation of the great beauty of the colour obtained upon the screen, it must be remembered that all the colours visible upon it are produced by the admixture of coloured light and not of pigments. In colour-music therefore, as already pointed out, the greater the number of colours combined upon the screen the greater the tendency, roughly speaking, towards increased luminosity. This partly accounts for the extreme purity and beauty of the colour when properly combined upon the screen. Successive contrast—that is, contrasts of colours following each other, but not presented to the eye at the same moment—probably also has much to do with this exceptional beauty. Simultaneous contrast also exists when a colour-chord is broken up into its constituents by the diaphragms, or by the surface of the screen. So that in colour-music we have two kinds of contrast acting upon us, whereas in painting there is but one.
Another fact that strikes most of those who ​see mobile colour effects for the first time, is that they are introduced to a number of colours which they have never seen before and to which they can give no definite names. The colour-organ is, in fact, an easy means of producing those ranges of colour which it is difficult or impossible to obtain by means of paints, dyes, or other pigments, and which are rare in nature or in other forms of art.
As already mentioned, the chief difficulty in appreciating colour-music at the outset lies in being unable to appreciate rapid changes of colour upon the screen. Some persons do not feel this difficulty at all, whilst with others it only disappears after some weeks of training, but as it disappears the desire for increased rapidity of change steadily grows. At first the succession of chords can hardly be slow enough to give satisfaction, while later on and after more experience the contrasting effect of extremely rapid passages is eagerly demanded by the eye and by the mind. This is interesting as showing the educative effect of colour-music upon the powers of the eye.
The sources of light in a colour-organ of 13,000 candle-power.
My early experiments led me to think that the difficulty was really due to alteration of intensity or luminosity of colour, rather than to that of tint or character of the colour, and it occurred to me that the effect of this alteration of intensity upon the eye might be greatly lessened if the colour-field upon the screen were surrounded by a background of pure white light. This acted successfully to a great extent, and in the newer forms of instrument two vertical bars or stripes of strong and pure white light are placed upon each side of the colour-field and opposed by black.
Experience has shown that in a very short ​time displays of mobile colour awaken a rapidly increased desire to see more of it. There is no colour either in nature or elsewhere of quite the same kind either as to its variety, strength, or delicacy, and to those who love colour—or perhaps even still more, to those who have a latent sensitiveness to colour of which they are almost unconscious—the new art opens up an entirely new field of pleasure and interest.
The first impressions received being, as already noted, those of the beauty of the colour and of its variety, there usually follows after this the demand, as in music, for a kind of rhythm in the colour composition. The player, for instance, gives us a passage of warm tints, of orange and rose colour, succeeded by cooler contrasts. The eye and mind then seem to demand a return to, or echo of, warmer colours. Or, if we translate this into time, if a composition opens with several long-drawn chords of colour succeeded by rapid phrases, there is a tendency in most people to desire to return to the balancing of effect of further slow and single chords.
Part of the "action" of the inner diaphragms for giving intervals of relative strength in the colour for each octave.
​The regular beat of a composition in well-marked time can easily be felt in colour, and time plays a far more important part than one would have supposed likely or possible in colour composition. To some extent it seems to take the place of form, that is, form in the sense in which the artist uses the word, though form as understood by the musician iş certainly also felt in mobile colour.
The author has made many experiments with regard to the introduction of form, as the painter understands it, in the colour projected upon the screen, and has come to the conclusion that if used at all it should be indefinite or merely decorative and not in any sense realistic. The kind of form, for instance, which we see in cirrus clouds, while very beautiful in itself, has no definite meaning and is not calculated to distract the mind from the beauty of the cloud colour and yet is sufficiently interesting in itself. This kind of form introduced into the colour perhaps gives an added interest to it in slow compositions, but in rapid ones the eye and the mind have quite enough to do to ​appreciate and enjoy the colour itself without the addition of form, which would seem to be an unnecessary complication. The whole question of the introduction of decorative form is, however, a very interesting one and might well be explored farther. In music we are perfectly satisfied with compositions which do not express definite ideas, and in colour there seems to be no reason why this should not also be so if our colour sense is sufficiently developed. If stringed instruments had never been invented, could it have been for a moment supposed that a whole audience would sit spell-bound under the sounds produced by drawing a horse-hair bow over a tightened gut-string without definite words or ideas attached to such sounds? It is simply the insufficient training of the colour sense in many people that makes them demand form in addition to colour, or prevents them from enjoying colour for its own sake.