Perfect Pitch.....tone color

[Susan Kline]

There's a very interesting book by a person who "saw" after going blind.
Jacques Lusseyran: "And There Was Light" 
-------------------------------------------------------
At 09:32 AM 12/7/97 -0800, you wrote:
>(Lots of big snips throughout)
>
>
>
>>>It sounds interesting to think that you could hear musical color in
>>>different pitches.  My thoughts on the matter are that this has to be
>>>bogus, because I have never heard different colors in different
>>>musical pitches.  But just because I can't do it doesn't negate the
>>>possibility that someone else can.
> >Isn't the major source of tone color in a chord based on the beat rate
>>of the thirds?  The chords will then "shimmer" at different rates,
>>enabling one to recognize different tone colors.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>About 12 years ago I attended a wonderful tuning demo/class that was
>presented jointly by Jim Coleman Sr. and George Defebaugh.  In the audience
>was a Piano Tech who was blind (NOT since birth), and he mentioned that he
>could *literally* hear colors.  Different frequencies, alone and in
>combinations,  excited the sight areas in his brain, and in his mind's eye
>he would see various colors, with different pitches evoking different
>colors. I don't recall if he claimed that this  was of any practical benefit
>to tuning.
>
>At the time, I thought it was nonsense, and didn't give it another thought.
>My loss, as it turned out.
>
>It was a few years later when I first read about "synesthesia"  or
>"synaesthesia".
>
>
>"It might be that Scriabin also suffered from a rare genetic peculiarity
>known as synesthesia, in which sound is translated directly into color.
>People with synesthesia cannot hear music without seeing colors."
>(from Schonberg's "Lives of the Great Composers")
>
>and...
>
>"Synaesthesia........................The production of a mental sense
>impression relating to one sense by the stimulation of another sense, as in
>coloured hearing........"
>(from Oxford English Dictionary)
>
>Scriabin even made a chart to tie in with his 5th symphony, showing which
>frequencies and colors matched up.   " C 256Hz = red........C# 277Hz =
>Violet.........E 341Hz = Pearly white and shimmer of moonlight......" and so
>on.
>
>In Scriabin's case, it must have been a curse, as it apparently contributed
>to his worsening insanity.
>
>
>Food for thought.
>
>
>
>
>
>Tom Myler
>
>"The young person knows the rules;
>   The old person knows the exceptions."
>
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com

"Cheer up! Things may be getting worse at a slower rate."
			-- Ashleigh Brilliant