If we imagine a musical instrument playing the note of middle C over and over and over again, it won’t be long before it literally becomes monotonous and irritating to our ears. In much the same way if we construct a paint color using only one chromatic pigment, say bright yellow, it may be perfectly pleasing at first, but eventually it won’t be soothing to the eye.

By adding another note, this time E, we construct a musical dyad. While this may be more interesting than the single note, it is still  incomplete. Similarly a paint color constructed with two pigments, this time we’ll add blue, is more enticing than one made from only one pigment, but still feels incomplete. There is something oddly missing from the equation.

When we add a third note we have created a basic chord. This has a resonance that is very comfortable to our ears. Likewise when we add a third pigment, this time red, we have joined the primary colors together in a combination that creates a more pleasing color. This is the basic concept inherent in full spectrum color mixing. So we can’t have what I term, “musical colors” unless we have a minimum of three chromatic pigments, but why stop there? We can go on combining complementary pigments until we create highly luminous colors that seduce our eyes and connect with us on a deeply emotional level.

One more thing to consider in our musical analogy is timbre, know in psycho acoustics as sound quality or sound “color”. It is worth noting that just as different musical instruments create differing sounds when playing the same note, different paint sheens give differing renditions of the same pigment structures. For example high gloss paint, which reflects light in one direction, can be compared to a piccolo with it’s unmistakable yet limited sound.  Eggshell paint is much more versatile and can be considered the middle range of a piano, scattering light in a wider range.  Flat paint which reflects light in all directions gives us the most robust rendering of any pigment combination, similar to a cello. It is considered the most elegant of sheens and is often inappropriately specified as a result. Practically speaking kitchens and bathrooms are not a place for flat paint. So let’s not forget sheen is an extremely important part of our color selection.

Next up…metamerism!