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Topic: Who has a Synesthesia here?  (Read 3326 times)

Offline nocturnetr

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Who has a Synesthesia here?
on: February 17, 2013, 05:39:42 PM
 I am a synesthetic piano student.
 
 Since this forum is full of musicians, either professional or amateur, I thought that there may be a lot of people with synesthesia who would like to share their experiences and note-colour, or piece-colour associations.

For me it is like:

C-White or Yellow. Black when minor
C#-Black
D-Dark Red
D#-Pink
E-Orange
F-Green.
F#-Light Blue, fantastic and unrealistic.
G-Green/Yellow
G#-Black.
A-Turquoise, glowy, calm, magical.
A#-Something between Blue and Black, I'd say Navy Blue, but much darker.
B-Dark Purple, not very pleasant, glowy.

This association is pretty much the same with pieces, with one or two exceptions:

Chopin's Etudes are like this for me:
10/4 and 25/11 are Green
10/12 is Black
25/12 is Dark and glowy blue
10/1 is Half white, half light blue.

Rach G minor prelude is brown
Rach 2 is Dark Grey
Liszt's Totentanz is red
Beethoven Symphony No. 9 is a pleasant Blue

But most of the pieces are appropriate:
Rach 3- Deep, dark red
Beethoven C# minor sonata no. 14 black for example

Some of the musicians with synesthesia include:

Liszt
Korsakov
Helene Grimaud
Leonard Bernstein
Messiaen
Ligeti
Itzhak Perlman
Sibelius

Would be nice if every synesthetic shared their opinions and associations. Since no one does associate them the same, we would see a lot of different views.





Offline mikeowski

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Re: Who has a Synesthesia here?
Reply #1 on: February 17, 2013, 06:12:33 PM
A few pieces I can remember from the top of my head:
Chopin Op. 10/1 -> Light yellow, though I have colors for all the different chords actually (as far as I have learned the notes). Example: C major is yellow-orange, F major green, a minor dark green/brown, G major brown-blue, D major yellow,...it's a chameleon etude..
Chopin Op 10/8 -> yellow-ish green
BWV 825 (Partita 1) = blue, the whole thing, with a shade of pink
Beethoven Op 2/1 -> Dark green
BWV 862 (P&F A major book 1) -> light blue with a bit of pinkish-purple

I don't have fixed color associations for all notes, but what I have is:
C -> light yellow
D -> yellow
F -> green
G -> dark blue with brown
Ab -> light blue
A -> red
Bb -> blue

Would be interesting to know how these associations form.

Offline lateromantic

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Re: Who has a Synesthesia here?
Reply #2 on: February 19, 2013, 05:58:12 PM
I have some degree of this, although I think my color associations are less vivid than they were when I was a child.  Interestingly, a lot of my colors align with yours, but A major is definitely red.  (A minor seems to be dark, maybe black.  In fact, I think I hear all the minor modes as darker colors.)

Past associations may play some role here.  When I was first learning piano, I believe one of my earliest pieces in A major was in a book with a bright red cover.

How about enharmonic keys?  Does Scriabin's Etude in D-Sharp Minor have a different color for you than Rachmaninoff's Etude in E-Flat Minor?  If you haven't seen the scores and your only experience of the two pieces is auditory, then logically it would be expected that you would hear them in the same color.  (By the way, the whole discussion seems to assume that one has absolute pitch.)
 

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