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Finding Truth and Beauty in the Music That Moves Us
Jun 14, 2025
(Painting: “The Other Side” by Brijit Reed)
In an 1889 letter to his brother, Van Gogh speaks of using coffee and alcohol to reach the “high yellow note.” Those words-- “high yellow note,” described a quality of emotional intensity he felt that he was able to transmit to the canvas. This explains why he used so much yellow in his pieces-- he was literally painting his emotions, and yellow was a way for him to convey the same emotional intensity he was feeling. This emotional energy radiates from his work, and one could argue that it’s the reason it still resonates so powerfully today.
And like Van Gogh, for me, this same sensibility applies to sound as well-- especially music. In a letter to his sister, Van Gogh wrote,
“I don’t know if you’ll understand that one can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music.”
Anyone who’s had the opportunity to attend the Van Gogh immersive experience anywhere in the world has made contact with what this marriage of sound, color, and emotion feels like.
I understand it at an experiential level myself. When I sense it, the high yellow note of these qualities conveys the feeling of being just right-- that somehow they are the embodiment of Truth and Beauty. Like Van Gogh, I sense the way color conveys emotions and meaning beyond the normal range of perception.
I feel the same impulse when I use certain colors on the canvas, and I even sense it when I’m writing, painting the page with words that feel like they contain just the right nuance of emotion and meaning I’m trying to convey. When I get it just right, it feels like I’ve hit that high yellow note. It’s a sensation inside of me that feels like it’s literally singing a high note, and for me, that note is thin, energetic, yellow, and harmonious.
I am by no means an expert on the topics of art or music, but I am an expert in the ways they make me feel, so I decided to create Bands of Light in an effort to explore music (and, apparently, art) in a way that views them through the lens of the high yellow note. We’ll look at various types of music from the perspective of emotion in Bands of Light-- examining what songwriters say about the music they create, as well as what those songs evoke for us as listeners when we hear them.
And since I was inspired in part by Van Gogh and his high yellow note, what better way to kick off this newsletter about music than with “Sowing the Seeds of Love” by Tears for Fears? It has everything-- the high yellow note of Truth and Beauty, as well as a reference to a sunflower, which was often a theme of Van Gogh’s paintings.
So if you’re ready to listen with new ears, join me in my next post as we explore the luminosity of “Sowing the Seeds of Love” by Tears for Fears - a song that glows with that high yellow note. Maybe you’ll discover that you’ve been hearing it too…
(*A Note on the Expansion of Content:
When I launched Bands of Light in summer 2025, I focused on music as the primary channel for that high yellow note. However, after several months of silence due to health challenges, I’ve returned with a deeper understanding: this resonant frequency of truth and beauty isn’t confined just to music and art—it pulses everywhere. You’ll still find explorations of music here, but I’m also going to be writing about my thoughts on how we can navigate life to the best of our ability, about philosophies, profound synchronicities, the practice of choosing trust over fear, and the everyday magic that emerges when we align with love and kindness. That high yellow note, it turns out, is playing everywhere— I’m just expanding my ability to hear all of its Bands of Light.)
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