Sound is exciting. It is a phenomenon that we associate with only one sense, but we can experience it with more than just the ears. It has no mass and it has no physical volume, but it can make you feel claustrophobic. It moves, but we cannot see it. It has texture but we cannot feel it. We don't know what it looks like, but we know how to interpret it through our own movement - We tap our feet. We nod our heads. Is dance not a visualisation of sound?
Certainly sound uses the same principles as the visual arts. Loud and quiet transitions in music are comparable to busy and empty areas in graphical illustration. Fluid or sharp sounds can be compared to curves or straight lines. Clean or distorted sounds aren't unlike crisp or uneven shapes. Texture and depth through the layering of instruments is comparable to the layering of colours and materials. Sound can be bright, dark, light, heavy, shallow, deep, sharp and blunt. These are visual descriptions.
So, what does sound look like?
