>
>        Colors like brown are actually shades of orange and
>yellow with a bit of black mixed in to make them dark.  If you
>were going to compare color to sound, brown would be like a base
>note that wasn't very loud and yellow or orange might be that
>same note only much louder.

Actually, brown is brown, not a shade of yello or orange.  All colors that
are not pure primary colors are mixtures of two or more colors.  If it
happens that brown has a greater proportion of orange or yellow, that
doesn't mean it is a shade of yellow or orange.  In your musical analogy,
yellow would sound like one note, while a brighter shade of yellow would
sound like a higher pitched tone -- the luminous intensity, wether incident
or reflective, would correspond to the volume of the tone.  Brown would
actually sound like a chord if the relative intensity levels of the primary
colors were differentiated as seperate tones and then mixed together.

Sound might be useful for some people, but the training time would be
daunting, not to mention the repeatability (unless you are the rare
exception that has absolutely perfect pitch) would be less accurate than a
table lookup approach.  This doesn't even consider the effects of ambient
noise, etc.

I speak from some experience as the last large software development project
I was working on was a  computer-based ink color formulation system for the
largest producer of commercial inks in the world.  A system which I
designed and programmed from the ground up.  It was coupled with a high-end
color analyzer from Applied Color Systems -- another company which I used
to do some consulting with back in the early 80s.

-- Jim

------------

James A. Rebman

Cognitive Levers Project
Center for Life-Long Learning and Design
Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado, Boulder

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
violent.  It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the
opposite direction."

 - E. F. Schumacher