Rich Talley

Rich Talley and Frequency Expressionism

Rich Talley, born in Alameda, California, is the creator of Frequency Expressionism, a groundbreaking painting style that visualizes sound as color. Rich’s journey to invent this unique form of art was shaped by both his scientific background and his lifelong love of music.

In 1994, Rich began working at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University, where he contributed as a science and engineering technician. His work focused on building RF microwave tubes for the particle accelerator, an experience that would later influence his art in profound ways. Rich spent nearly two decades at SLAC, immersing himself in the study of frequencies, waves, and electromagnetic energy, particularly in the context of the RF klystron's 2.856 GHz frequency.

Throughout his life, Rich had been a passionate musician, playing music since 1977. As a child, he used his imagination to “see the unseen,” a gift that would later become integral to his artistic vision. In 2011, after relocating to Tarrant County, Texas, Rich started experimenting with the concept of “seeing” sound. Inspired by a story about piezoelectricity and its ability to generate light, Rich began pondering the relationship between light and sound. He realized that both were frequencies—electromagnetic waves in the case of light and pressure waves in the case of sound.

This realization sparked an idea: Could sound frequencies correspond to visible light? Building on his technical knowledge of RF klystron tubes and the precise frequencies involved, Rich began to explore the frequencies of musical notes. Starting with the standard A note at 440 Hz, he methodically raised the frequency, doubling it for each octave, until he reached the terahertz (THz) range, where light is visible to the human eye. To his amazement, the frequencies aligned with the visible light spectrum, each musical note corresponding to a distinct color.

Rich named these color associations “Color-notes” and thus the concept of Frequency Expressionism was born. Using an old PC in his apartment, Rich spent countless hours manually calculating the frequencies of all 12 notes in Western music and determining their corresponding colors in the visible light spectrum. With these Color-notes in hand, Rich began painting songs on canvas, creating pieces that translated the music into vibrant visual representations of sound.