Since a *sense of darkness has taken over the "Q+A" version this 45wpm, I thought I'd see what the flipside had to say...

WW interjected...
...Yesterday in music class I worked with some seven-year-olds in developing a warm tone quality and used many images of heat and light to help them move from a decidedly harsh, cold, brittle tone to a warm one that I wanted in the passage we'd been working on, not that a cold, brittle tone isn't a useful part of the auditory palate at times.

The use of words that describe visualizations as substitutes for *generalities, specifically at this age in the formation of the musical mind, seems to be "putting the cart before the horse". DubDub's choice isn't the worst example I've seen... but close.

Equating "warm sounds" with "light" seems to be a bit misleading. The words I use for this *polarization are "acute and grave'"... or when speaking to a *younger crowd "closed and open" seem to maintain a focus on the sounds. When the words "light and dark" are used to *explain this it opens up (IMHO) the *virgin mind to mixed metaphor corruptions (to say the least) and builds/reinforces a dependency on visualizations, and more unfortunately, trains the student on others' *versions (however accurate or not) of what these meanings represent.

However accrurate warmth=light and coldness=darkness may reflect the physical spectrum... they shouldn't have a place in *defining "open and closed", and certainly not "high and low", "harsh and smooth" or "strong and brittle".

... and all "this" just because the way I would understand the imagery is: an open or warm sound is much more *accurately described as dark..., but I often stand alone in certain *darknesses.