Chess/music synaesthesia

What is even weirder than me having a sense of synaesthesia linking musical key signatures and chess openings is the fact that I never consciously realized that this was kind of a weird thing until today. Actually, calling it synaesthesia may be overstating it; it’s not like music springs into my head as I play an opening, but I definitely do feel a consistent correlation.

Here’s a list off the top of my head of chess opening/musical key associations, trying to think about it as little as possible so as to let my subconscious through:

• Giuoco Piano: C major
  • Evans Gambit: Bb major
• Ruy Lopez: C major
  • Open: E major
• Sicilian Defense: G major
  • Najdorf : D major
  • Taimanov: E minor
• French Defense: A minor
• Pirc Defense: B minor
• Modern Defense: B major
• Queen’s Gambit Declined: Eb major
• King’s Indian Defense: Bb minor
• Grünfeld Defense: D minor
• Benoni: B major (I know it is odd for this to be on the sharp side, but a pawn on c5 clearly implies a B natural in the tonic triad!)

Since I am doing this all subconsciously, it is hard for me to actually defend these associations, but I can identify some general correspondences. In general e4 openings tend towards the sharp side of the keys while d4 openings tend towards the flat side. I think there also seems to be some correlation between minor keys and Black only advancing his pawns one square. Both of these do seem to make some sort of sense: e4 openings are “sharper” and “brighter” while d4 openings are more “quiet” and “restrained”, while only advancing your pawns to the sixth rank is a little “sad”. But I would certainly not fight anyone who claimed that these associations basically make no sense at all.