"Pictures at a Music-color Exhibition": Exploring Children's and Adults' Color-hearing in Response to Béla Bartók's Piano Work 

Authors

  • Rivka Elkoshi Bar-Ilan University, Levinsky College of Education  Author

Keywords:

listening to classical music, color-hearing, Synaesthesia and Chromaesthesia, invented notations

Abstract

 The purpose of this phenomenological study is to identify Chromaesthesia, namely hearing music in terms of colors, among schoolchildren and college and university music majors. Participants were eight-year-old second-graders (N=118) and college and university undergraduate and graduate music majors (N=107) who encountered a piano work by Béla Bartók. Subjects matched musical elements with colors via audio-graphic illustrations and related spoken and/or written notes. The study shows that both young children and adult music majors naturally perceive and convey relationships between music and color, suggesting that Chromaesthesia is not lost in the cognitive transition from childhood to adulthood and into a career of advanced musicianship. However, fixed correlations between music and color are not confirmed, since the music elicits various color metaphors, bearing a strong subjective validity. By implementing Chromaesthism in the curriculum, music educators may promote pedagogical practices that cultivate cross-sensory correspondences and directly develop creativity. 

Author Biography

  • Rivka Elkoshi, Bar-Ilan University, Levinsky College of Education 

    Rivka Elkoshi is a supervisor of doctoral dissertations at the School of Education at Bar- Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, a senior lecturer and MA thesis supervisor at the Levinsky College of Education, Kibbutzim College, Tel Aviv and teaches an undergraduate course at Givat Washington College, Israel. Dr. Elkoshi conducts workshops for music teachers on behalf of the Ministry of Education in Israel. She has published books and dozens of research articles in Israeli, American and British journals and presented internationally. She received research grants from the MOFET Institute for her research on musical literacy in schools and conducted research on emergent musical literacy in kindergartens on behalf of Ministry of Education, Israel. She takes part in many professional committees e.g., editorial board of international journals (IJEA / Art & Learning), the Council for Higher Education in Israel ("Malag") and The Israeli Musicological Society (IMS). 

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Published

2024-02-04

Issue

Vol. 15 (2018)

Section

Articles