One of the most fascinating experiments in synaesthesia was the construction of a board of graded colours, constructed as a musical instrument. Its maker, the Mannerist painter Arcimboldo, made it so that his master of the viols could play tunes from it - as the different colours were pointed to. The curious thing about this board was that Arcimboldo related the lightest colours with the deepest notes of music.

Arcimboldo's musical colour board reconstructed by D Pavey

Another person whose system tried to systematize the relationship between colour and music was the colour manufacturer George Field in the early 19th century. He constructed what he called analagous scales of sound and colour. (Field 1817)

Many intellectuals laboured on meticulous systems that connected particular musical notes with particular colours. The tradition was begun by Sir Isaac Newton, who encircled Descartes' diagram of musical harmonics with his spectrum. Instruments were constructed to fit the Cartesian harmonics, such as the 18th colour claveson of Father Castel, in the 19th century by Prof. Rimington, and by Klein in the 20th century. The musician Scriabin actually composed for the colour organ an overture called Prometheus in which a Poem of Fire was accompanied by colour projections. This was a failure for mechanical and aesthetic reasons.

An example of a system tying notes of the keyboard to specific colours is that of Danton Adams. (Adams 1960) However, Danton Adams was not creating a new approach to music so much as an aid to artists. He used musical concepts to enhance a system of designing with colours.

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