Comments on: Musicophilia

By: Johnsenclan » Blog Archive » Book Review: City of Ember

Johnsenclan » Blog Archive » Book Review: City of Ember — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:16:39 +0000

[...] reviews Musicophilia by Oliver [...]

By: Conor

Conor — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:40:03 +0000

Thanks for the plugin fix. You’re right about the simple versus complex type of color association… I’ll have to ask more about that.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:52:17 +0000

Hmm, how late in the night did you ask around? After enough beer, anyone can see music and taste color.

I wonder, too, if w.r.t. grapheme-color synesthesia there aren’t two different phenomenons: simple association (i.e., think of the letter ‘p’ and think of purple, ‘b’ is blue, and other more common intellectual associations) and synesthesia, which is, remember, an entirely involuntary perception of color concomitant to thought of day/letter/number.

As I mentioned before, I’m not at all surprised if the existence is the new “1 in 23″ figure, though I think I’d be very surprised if it was closer to 70% as your informal survey seems to suggest.

(Aside: apparently my “Subscribe to Comments” plugin got deleted somehow. It’s back now.)

By: Conor

Conor — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:10:41 +0000

Last night at the bar I got close to 70% agreement. But maybe I just rock at persuading people. I shall press onward in my non-scientific querying.

Why can’t I subscribe to comments anymore?

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:36:49 +0000

It wouldn’t surprise me. The latest estimates for synesthesia are 1 in 23. But it’s not universal, no.

By: Conor

Conor — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:37:14 +0000

Ah-ha! Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy it was called. And I was right about the colors.

By: Conor

Conor — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:33:47 +0000

I’ll have to ask around, but I thought everyone had what’s here described as “Grapheme-color synesthesia.” Just finished a Nabakov book in which he used the term “pale green 18th century.” Days of the week are definitely colored for me, but not nearly as boldly and richly as are the months or decades or centuries.

I don’t think this is a rare thing at all.

A few years ago I read a somewhat splendid book on this whole “music is weird for the brain” subject. The title escapes me now (oddly I vividly remember the purple and maroon hues on the cover!), and my internet connection is too shoddy to chase after the scant verbal clues I’ve gathered together in my mind, but it was a good read.

Yeah. Take my word for it.