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How to choose your interior colour scheme according to your favourite music

From rock to country and everything in between - by Nicola Conville
  • 19 Feb 2020

Watch: the rules for painting your walls a dark colour

The type of music we like could be linked to our preferred interior colour scheme, according to an experiment carried out by HomeAdvisor.

How to choose your interior colour scheme according to your favourite music

Chromesthesia is a neurological condition where the brain sees colours in sounds. It effects around 1 in 3000 people, including musicians Aphex Twin, Lorde and Pharrell Williams.

The HomeAdvisor experiment aimed to showcase the effects of chromesthesia, or synesthesia, with the help of home décor. 

HomeAdvisor worked with two ‘chromestetes’ to put their unique abilities to the test. The duo listened to top tracks associated with 10 distinctive music genres and collated a colour palette comprised of the different hues that they experienced while listening to each playlist.

Next, interior experts were engaged to change a plain white living room into a space that was awash with the colours agreed by the chromestetes. 

See below for the 10 colour schemes and the music that inspired them, and find out if your favourite music matches your favourite room.

1. The Rock Room

The rock-inspired living room has a stark, polarized palette with tones of artichoke and crimson, and metallic and velvety textures. Perhaps this represents the simple, homogenous sonic palette of the genre: punchy drums, wailing guitars and gruff voices.

HomeAdvisor
HomeAdvisor

2. The Country Room

The country room features a palette of cream, Laguna-yellow, Redwood and Tortilla. The brown tones could echo guitars or even the cultural association of country music with wooden ranches and chestnut horses.

HomeAdvisor
HomeAdvisor

3. The Pop Room

For this room, the chromestetes listened to Circles by Post Malone, resulting in a harmonic balance between prime colors, pastels, and metallic hues – reflecting the clear, ordered accessibility of chart-ready pop hits.

HomeAdvisor
HomeAdvisor

4. The R&B Room

Just like the music genre, the R&B Room is harmonious and chilled. The palette of Champagne, Charcoal, Cream, Lime, Pearl River, and Prussian seems to speak of the genre’s refined arrangements and mellow moods; the R&B living room is equally set for party mode or relaxation.

HomeAdvisor
HomeAdvisor

5. The Rap Room

Rap music conjured the most diverse range of colours of any genre in the minds of the two participants. From Cream to Fire, Pearl River to Hot Pink, the colours cover the spectrum in both hue and intensity.

HomeAdvisor
HomeAdvisor

6. The Latin Room

For the Latin room, the two participants had very different visuals - one saw pale colours, while the other saw richer, more saturated shades. Perhaps this speaks to the diversity of Latin music, which has a rich and varied history and may resemble pop music or R&B.

HomeAdvisor
HomeAdvisor

7. The J-Pop Room

Bright and fun, there is something about the joyfully artificial J-Pop sound in the bubblegum-flavored room, although – just like a candy shop – no two colours quite belong together.

HomeAdvisor
HomeAdvisor

8. The EDM (Electronic Dance Music) Room

Electronic dance music (EDM) encompasses a variety of subgenres, but one thing they have in common is that they get you moving on the dance floor. There’s a definite nightclub vibe to the EDM-themed living room, featuring a palette of moody Azure, Electric Purple, and Cyber Yellow.

HomeAdvisor
HomeAdvisor

9. The Lo-fi hip-hop beats Room

Appropriately, the colors chillhop evoked for the participants are gentle background shades - pale blue and green pastels such as Abalone, Air Force and Laurel.

HomeAdvisor
HomeAdvisor

10. The Heavy Metal Room

Unsurprisingly, heavy metal music inspired a room with strong, dark shades of Maroon, Black, Mahogany and Hickory brown. If you choose to incorporate these moody colours into your space, make sure you have enough natural light to counter it. 

HomeAdvisor
HomeAdvisor

You might also like:

Six colours you’ll find in every Scandinavian home

10 dated decorating trends that are on the way out in 2020

How to style an Insta-worthy bookshelf

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Nicola Conville
Nicola Conville
Nicola Conville has worked as a lifestyle journalist and editor for twenty years across a wide range of print and online publications. As Home Beautiful's Digital Content Editor, she is passionate about discovering and sharing the latest styles, trends, hacks and celebrity homes.

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