At the keyboard, play each sonority as it is voiced in the score. While the sonority is sounding, sing its arpeggiation. This process develops the harmonic image in a series of small, easy steps. Each step prepares you for the next one. The more you do this sort of thing, the more vivid your harmonic imagery will become.
Color is sometimes paradoxical.
An instrument's warm, resonant sound can be unsatisfactory within the context of the ensemble if it lacks sufficient edge to cut through the other instruments. Give it some nasality, and it becomes more beautiful in a relative sense by being less beautiful in an absolute sense. This has tremendous implications for musical performance. Specifically, the stress will create a beginning-accented grouping whose strong and weak elements are out of phase with those of the meter. Metric disruptions also arise because of inappropriate dynamic relationships between instruments.