The definition of chromesthesia
is any type of synesthesia where the inducer is sound
or music and the concurrent is (or includes) colour.
Chromesthesia is quite a commonly-used term, and in practice people normally use it to refer to synesthesia involving music as an inducer (rather than just general sounds) and colour as a concurrent (colour impressions, particularly when the music creates the perception of several different colours, usually with movement and a spatial component and also when the colour impressions are in the form of shapes, lines, etc.).
So basically it's referring to auditory-visual synesthesia in general, EXCEPT for the type where there is no colour involved (synesthetes who only get colourless, black-and-white or greyscale visual impressions from music and sound, which is not as common as the coloured variety but some do experience it like this, usually in the form of geometric shapes).
Like
all the other visual types of synesthesia, chromesthesia can be
associative or projective: most chromesthetes are "associators",
meaning their colour perceptions, which can be extremely vivid, occur
in their mind's eye or just as an impression of a particular colour
or colours, while others are "projectors": this is a
stronger manifestation, where they actually see the colours as if
they were in front of them in real life. It's also interesting to
note that some associator chromesthetes have occasional experiences
of projection (if they're extremely tired, for
example, or perhaps in an unusually
emotional state or smoking cannabis to
relax). For projector synesthetes the
impression can even be so strong sometimes that the colours block out
other visual stimuli, although it's fairly rare for this to be the
case. When it is, it can cause problems for them, making activities
like driving while listening to music impossible. But the vast
majority of people with chromesthesia just enjoy an enhanced
experience of music and it can often increase their interest or
talent in this area, so chromesthetes can quite often be found in the
music business, as musicians, singers or producers, using their
colours to help guide them in their creation and interpretation. And
for some people whose specific type of
synesthesia is tone-to-colour (a
colour is automatically visualised for each musical note),
it can be a strongly contributing factor in
the case of their having absolute or
perfect pitch.
All the following types of synesthesia can be called chromesthesia (the
links go to the pages on each type):
Musical note-colour (=tone-colour)
Timbre-colour (and timbre colour/shape)
Song-colour, musical genre-colour
General sounds-colour (and general sounds-colour/shape)
Voice-colour
(and voice-colour/shape)
This image: Loria187, on Reddit/Synesthesia. 2020.
Go to the page on all the music-related types of synesthesia (not just chromesthesia)
More cases / readers' comments: read all the comments on
this article here
(See the latest comments
received below, or follow the above link for access to all the reader comments)
This page last updated: 26 March 2026
helllo there! i believe i may have some sort of chromesynethesia..? for me, different music sounds like different colours.. as a musician in a band, as i've learnt music theory, those colours now at least partially separate, and as im learning to distinguish more musical features, the colour is starting to separate, and different musical features are different colours. those colours do occasionally blur back into the one colour, especially when i'm tired, and i have to focus to fully distinguish the colours occasionally. happens with singing voices, songs, and some speaking voices. some names are also certain colours. i'm not really sure if it's just correlation or if it could be chromesynethesia...
ReplyDeleteHi! First of all I'm sorry about such a late reply, there were some comments at the end of 2025/start of 2026 that I didn't see.
DeleteYes, definitely, what you say is definitely a description of auditory-visual synesthesia or chromesthesia. And it can intensify or seem to "separate out" for some people when they study aspects of music and really start to focus on certain types of musical sequences and distinguish between them. It sounds like much more than just correlation. Voices and names are known separate synesthesia inducers too. So, yes!
I know at this point I have chromesthesia and it is 99% and I meant 99.99% consistent but then randomly I was listening to on the bound Fiona apple and it is f minor to e major for the main chord progressions and f would be grass green, along with greyish green and red for that chord, to light slightly grey blue and blue green and yellow-green-grey for the E chord. like if I play it separately on piano broken up and those notes by themselves, that is the color. but then in that song there's so many differenet instruments with black key notes, which are different shades of green and purple and blue purple, its like there's a filter and it becomes PURPLES and REDS out of nowhere is that normal?
ReplyDeleteYes, I wouldn't worry about it not seeming consistent at one point with that particular song, especially as you mention a combination of different instruments and different notes that sound enough to confuse anyone's synesthesia for a moment! Your new purples and reds might even be in response to something else entirely, such as an emotion you're feeling as you're trying to negotiate a more complex or very different rendition of a song you usually play. You could try listening to the same version of the song at different times and if it's giving you the same purples and reds each time then there's the proof that this is consistent, and if it doesn't then it would just have been a one-off thing, perhaps for reasons of sudden confusion about the notes/timbres/chords or an emotion or some other aspect of the music you'd suddenly focused on. If it is consistent on listening to that version of the song, you could try analysing what aspect could be giving you the different colours, as it could be interesting to know. But anyway, yes, I'd say it's quite normal to have occasional changes in colour or shape concurrents, when the inducer starts getting complex or confusing, mixed with other stimuli or perhaps mixing in with another type of synesthesia the person might have.
Delete