CSA Western Australian Division Meeting: Colour and Music Part 1

The first session, held on the Saturday 13 March was led by Paul Green-Armytage. Paul’s exercise was based on participants matching 3 colours to the sound of an orchestral instrument. Paul used Benjamin Britten’s ‘The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra’ to isolate different musical instruments for the exercise. Each participant was given a palette of colours to choose from, ranging from bright highly chromatic colours through a variety of tints and shades. Participants were required to choose any three colours, from the given palette, that they considered best matched the sound of the instrument being played. Participants cut out the small squares of colour and glued them to a sheet of paper next to the name of the appropriate instrument. Paul stepped through all the instruments of the orchestra until a palette of 3 colours had been chosen by each participant for each instrument.

At the end of the exercise Paul group all the palettes for a particular instrument together, and we looked for, and discussed, similarities, differences, and patterns across the palettes.