A Pilot Study on Synesthesia Between Color Senses and Musical Scales in Chinese Musical Instrument “Guqin”

Abstract

This study aims to understand the synesthesia phenomenon between color senses and different musical scales of the Chinese musical instrument “Guqin”, the research method is a quasi-experiment design method. Twenty-one observers were invited to join the assessment of the experiment in synesthesia between the color and musical scales of Guqin by using convenient sampling. Three tasks should be finished on each observer. These include increasing the lightness task, decreasing the lightness task, and selecting the target color when hearing the eight musical scales of Guqin. This study analyzes the difference between the observers who have music training backgrounds or do not, using the independent-sample T-test. It is also to understand the synesthesia between the musical scales of Guqin and the lightness/color. The study results show no significant difference between music and arts backgrounds observers in the lightness adjustment task. Result also shows a positive correlation between lightness and musical scales. The saturation of color is no significant correlation with musical scales, the pilot study figures out the robust results, which provide the next stage in experiment design.