Synaesthesia

:Note: Synaesthesia was the name of a series of events that took place in Rochester, NY in 2003 (see Synaesthesia, events). There is also an industrial music band called Synæsthesia.

Synaesthesia in art

Synaesthesia is an often-used poetic device. In a familiar example, Andrew Marvell characterized the fruitful and serene atmosphere of the garden as

Related Topics:
Poetic device - Andrew Marvell - Garden

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:Annihilating all that's made

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:To a green thought in a green shade

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:( —"The Garden")

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Likewise, Nick Carraway, the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, recounts "yellow cocktail music" playing at one of Gatsby's parties.

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Nick Carraway - F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby - Parties

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Synaesthesia as a drug effect played a role in the popular song "Lake Shore Drive" by Aliotta-Haynes-Jeremiah:

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Song - Lake Shore Drive - Aliotta-Haynes-Jeremiah

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:Sometimes you can smell the green

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:When your mind is feeling fine

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: ( —Aliotta, Haynes and Jeremiah)

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Synaesthesia has influenced many artists in various fields, including poets Charles-Pierre Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud (specifically his poem Voyelles), and an ersatz synaesthesia has sometimes been overused since as a shortcut to "modernity."

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Artist - Poet - Charles-Pierre Baudelaire - Arthur Rimbaud - Poem

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Composer Alexander Scriabin, in his orchestral work, ' (1910), included a part for a "clavier à lumières". This instrument was played like the piano, but produced colored light instead of sound. Scriabin did not experience the physiological condition of synaesthesia. The color system he described and which he used in pieces such as Prometheus, unlike most systems and synaesthetic experience, lines up with the circle of fifths, indicating that it was a thought-out system; it was also influenced by his theosophic readings and based on Sir Isaac Newton's Optics. Many other artists have used fabricated synesthetic systems, such as the Italian futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and the Russian abstract-painting pioneer Wassily Kandinsky.

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Alexander Scriabin - Orchestra - 1910 - Clavier à lumières - Instrument - Piano - Circle of fifths - Theosophic - Isaac Newton - Futurist - Filippo Tommaso Marinetti - Wassily Kandinsky

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Amy Beach was a synesthete, seeing different colors for different keys, as well as possessing absolute pitch. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was reputed to be a synesthete. Olivier Messiaen was a true synesthete; he discussed his condition to a great extent in his writings, going so far as to describe in detail the exact colorations evoked by particular chords. Contemporary postminimal composer Michael Torke is a synesthete who perceives colors for various time units. French drummer Manu Katché and world-renowned oboist Jennifer Paull are both synesthetes, Katche seeing various images with music, and Paull seeing an expanded unexplainable spectrum to various sounds, the sensation of the oboe compelling her to take it up.

Related Topics:
Amy Beach - Absolute pitch - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Olivier Messiaen - Postminimal - Michael Torke - French - Drummer - Manu Katché - Oboist - Jennifer Paull

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Franz Liszt, when conducting, confused the musicians by describing timbres or sonorities in chromatic terms.http://home.comcast.net/~sean.day/syn-composers.htm Ludwig van Beethoven considered B minor to be "the black key," and Franz Schubert viewed E minor as like "a maiden robed in white and with a rose-red bow on her breast."http://www.synsation.org/episodesFull1.html In such cases of long-dead people, it is difficult to tell whether they were describing their synesthesia or using figures of speech such as those from Marvell and Fitzgerald above.

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Franz Liszt - Ludwig van Beethoven - Franz Schubert

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In his autobiography, writer Vladimir Nabokov described his synaesthetic experiences. The American physicist Richard Feynman admitted to seeing the algebraic symbols of Bessel functions in colour.

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Vladimir Nabokov - Richard Feynman - Bessel function - Colour

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Jimi Hendrix, who knew little music theory, would attempt to describe chords and harmony in terms of colour. For example, the chord E7#9 (often referred to by guitar players as the 'Hendrix chord') gave him a strong sense of the colour purple. The chord is played under the words 'purple haze' in each verse of the song of that name.

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Electronic music artist Richard D. James (better known as Aphex Twin) is said to be a synaesthete, as is Stephen Hargreaves, whose Children of Laudanum titled their first LP Synestheia.

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Electronic music - Richard D. James - Aphex Twin - Stephen Hargreaves - Children of Laudanum - LP

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As digital entertainment becomes more developed, the possibility of synaesthesia through technology has begun to be considered. Several video games already use the term in their advertising, most notably the 2001 Dreamcast/PlayStation 2 game REZ (which does have some elements of synaesthesia in its gameplay, notably the interaction of controller vibration, music, player interaction and graphics).

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Video games - Advertising - Dreamcast - PlayStation 2 - REZ - Gameplay - Controller - Graphics

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The ability to read could be also be considered a form of synaesthesia - the linking of shapes to sounds.

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