Chronology of Color Music

• 1730, father castel, optical harpsichord
• 1789, erasmus darwin, color projections
• 1844, d d jameson, color projections
• 1869, frederic kastner, colors and sounds
• 1877, bainbridge bishop, color organ
• 1893, alexander wallace rimington, color organ patent
• 1909, bruno corra arnoldo ginna, color organ
• 1909, arnold schonberg, musical drama with colored lights
• 1911, alexander scriabin, music with colored lights composed
• 1912, "visual music" term coined by roger fry
• 1912, leopold survage, animated color film proposed ***
• 1914, kandinsky, music drama with colored lights
• 1915, alexander wallace rimington, scriabin premiere
• 1919, viking eggeling, first purely abstract film ***
• 1919, mary hallock-greenewalt, rheostat, color organ (silent concerts, music viz)
• 1920, walter ruttman and oskar fischinger, abstract animation films ***
• 1921, walter ruttman, films shown in frankfort ***
• 1925, alexander laszlo, color organ
• 1927-31, oskar fishinger films shown worldwide ***
• 1930, thomas wilfred, lumia, clavilux, lumina theater
• 1934, mary ellen bute, animated films ***
• 1936, charles dockum, color organ, mobilcolor
• 1939, John and James Whitney, Twenty-Four Variations, their first abstract film ***
• 1940, oskar fishinger, lumigraph (color organ)
• 1941, Harry Smith, early animated films, images batiked directly onto film ***
• 1953, jordan belson, mandala ***
• 1957, JB, vortex concerts in SF planetarium
• 1957, James W, yantra (hand drawn) ***
• 1961, john whitney, catalog ***
• 1961. JB, allures ***
• 1968, John W, permutation ***
• 1968, 2001: a space odyssey stargate sequence ***
• 1971, John W, matrix ***
• 1974, Larry Cuba, first fig ***
• 1974, laurie spiegel ***
• 1975, John W, arabesque ***
• 1980, JW book, digital harmony
• 1985, Larry Cuba, calculated movements ***

References