Intro
Today I have once again been visited by the key of A major. I woke up and heard a soft Finnish song looping in my mind, asking me to play it out loud. As I let myself surrender and soften into the music with curiosity, a deeper and more vulnerable part of myself became present. This sound reminded me of the innocence of the heart and made me aware of a heaviness within. These sounds were reflecting some internal misalignments, and, of course, the way back to internal balance.
In this post I provide several colour samples and song previews that address each key. The colour samples are approximations meant to give a visual component to the music tracks. Sometimes multiple songs in the same key will have their own variations of the main key’s colour (darker, lighter, etc.). If you are new to my blog, this post uses synesthetic terms like ‘rotation’ and ‘slope’. I’ve explained these in more detail in my earlier posts for more background: Synesthesia in Action and F-Minor – Sensing the Extraordinary.
A Major
A major shines as a bright crimson, conveying vibrancy and a fullness of life. It embodies the tenderness of the heart and an honest and joyous energy. Its sense of liberation and peace enhances this feeling of authenticity. It feels like the warm, kind heart of a joyous child or a loved one.
Key Characteristics
- Mechanics: red/crimson. clockwise rotation, no slope
- Emotions: joy, love, hope
- Abstract: spring, warm, airy
(Example songs in A major)
F# Minor
F# minor, being A major’s relative minor, also connects to this space. Minor keys are more likely to encompass darker, sad, or deeper feelings, as opposed to major keys’ light, vibrant, and open energies. F# minor has more turbulent energy of separation, which feels disconnected from its lighter major relative. Its resonance can also help when connecting to and releasing feelings of grief and disconnection.
Key Characteristics
- Mechanics: copper tones/orange. anti-clockwise rotation, negative slope
- Emotions: grief, longing
- Abstract: atmospheric, turbulent, windy
(Example songs in F# minor)
Reflections
Musical consciousness works two ways: it is a mirror reflecting what you possess within, and it is a powerful energy that can tune your being.
Inner Harmony
It has taken me time and a lot of listening to sense the deeper synesthetic qualities of music. And I feel it has been a gift to learn about each key’s qualities, which have oriented me toward looking within. They’ve all shown me various parts of myself just by holding genuine curiosity and openness.
The more I immersed myself into the sound, the deeper I journeyed into myself. I became closer to new parts and even reacquainted myself with distant parts of myself that I had not experienced in years. This type of experience brought back some of the magic I felt as a young child when all was unknown and glowing with mystery. This “unknown” was expansive and dynamic before societal and ancestral burdens weighed it down.
Sound Tuning
In 2024 at an event called Music & Sky, I experienced the power of biofield tuning using tuning forks. These tools, made of metal, are designed to vibrate at specific frequencies for various purposes. The forks are struck and waved around one’s energetic field or even physically placed onto the body. They help to harmonise the overall field and release energetic stagnations and disturbances. Since I had experienced other forms of energetic healing both in person and remotely, I was mostly expecting to become deeply relaxed and maybe feel a subtle emotional shift. But as I lay on the table and observed the various hums and buzzing, energy from around my body began surfacing. Not too long after, I began to feel a strong emotional release in the form of sobbing. The healer continued holding a soft, loving space and encouraged these feelings as she progressed. By the end of it, I felt I had released an old, sizeable chunk of grief. This release was deeply uncomfortable, but it also opened a new space within me to hold more peace and groundedness.
Music & Sky – The Great Outdoors 2024 California
After this paradigm-shifting experience, I continued to observe synesthetic music perception through the keys’ individual qualities. I would listen to a single song or single key for an extended period of time to feel how my various inner layers would respond. It seemed that various inner states and moods were evoked, processed, or enhanced the more I relaxed into them. This exploratory process has allowed some interesting things to happen. Not only have I been able to better categorise these key qualities and observe further groupings of keys and their relationships, but I have been able to use it to my advantage in healing inner work. Some keys have been very helpful to match a difficult inner state, soften it, and then begin the gentle transformation process into integration and healing.
A major and F# minor have been two very helpful keys in the process of identifying and implementing sound into other parts of my life – when needing presence, encouragement, validation of inner tenderness, or when stuck grief has needed a little push.
Outro
As I keep listening and noting what emerges, I hope to add more discoveries to this growing library of sound and colour. I don’t know where the journey will lead me next, but I always find these experiences exciting and encouraging in exploring the mysterious.
Thanks for reading!
-Garrett Porter