-
Can synesthesia be taught?
It wasn’t so long ago that the very existence of synesthesia was questioned. (You may recall from an earlier post that there are 60+ types of synesthesia, the condition in which stimulation of one sense leads to automatic experience of a second sense.) Many scientists throughout the twentieth century scoffed at the idea of synesthesia…
-
Seeing sounds, hearing colors, part IV
We are in a holiday season during which many of us will eat too much, so I have been quite delighted to discover that for one synesthete, a major sixth tastes like low-fat cream – as opposed to a minor sixth that tastes like regular cream, or a major third that tastes sweet. Don’t you…
-
Seeing sounds, hearing colors, part III
Tom tells me that my voice is yellow when he speaks to me in person, but is a bright green on the phone. I’m not sure what I think about having a yellow voice, or even a bright green one. While I hear voices as lighter or darker, throaty, wispy, husky, gravelly, etc., and I…
-
Seeing sounds, hearing colors, part II
Imagine if you saw a color whenever you looked at someone’s face, and different faces were different colors. Or tasted eggs when you heard the word “fax.” Or saw a mental map placing any number you saw or heard in a certain location in space (as in the image at the left, called a number…
-
Seeing sounds, hearing colors, part I
I have often asked a student “what color does this movement (or excerpt, or chord progression) suggest to you?” Color becomes a metaphor for sound – an additional tool for accessing the emotional content of the work, because most of us (even if unaware of it) associate colors with emotions – lighter colors for happiness,…