B.M. Galeyeu. “The nature and Functions of Synesthesia in Music” Leonardo Vol 40, No. 3, pp285-288, 2007
Yuni Kwon(DM)
Synesthesia is one sense evokes another sense and the combination of senses occurs synergy effect, mixing sensors. Hearing a sound, one is able to imagine color, shape, or structure of the sound. The association of several senses makes for us to call psychic metaphors. During the process of combining different sensors, those correspond with not only personal characters but also general contexts where one exists. Thus, the principle of association has some particular sensory modality which reflect social communication to one’s interpretation of a sound, As to say, how psychic bond arise in one’s imagination depends on subjective probabilities in the historical and cultural conditions.
Similarity between a sound and color, shape, or structure engenders one’s mind special product of imagination according to co-sensation. Emotional impression of a sound such as timbre is translated another nature, visuality which has a parallel quality of a sound. One of the obvious examples is “Color Hearing”. It is a phenomenon in which while listening the music, one feels the contiguous property of color with a sound in the aesthetic sense. Also, “Pitch-size association” is about a shape of sound as well as color. A low pitch is related to big, thick structure; otherwise high pitch has a connection with small and thin volume. Such kind of synesthesia comes from language of the physical world. It is easy to expect if object is corpulent, spatial-gravitationally heavy, it makes low-pith sounds. Depending on a physical object size, weight or sound can get another visual perception. Moreover, in literally sense, meaning of big in music can be once more extended to darker. Paradoxically, terminologies used in field of color, size, dimension or sound is not separated and go together since the metaphoric contiguity between similar words links them together in subconscious and emotional level.
Then, why do people try to make a bridge between these kinds of sensors although these senses are totally independent? Human being is in-between mind and body. Existing in the middle of ideal and substantial world, people try to connect the separation. People want to embody their mentalities to actual thing. Unconscious attempt for actualization is appeared on audiovisual mechanism. An invisible sound simultaneously engenders a visual image and a shape and, since music’s primary nature is ephemeral and constantly changing, it corresponds with a movement. Thus, music is a kind of a moving architecture or a body. Even though a music or sound is an expression from one’s mind to external world, it is absence of actualization. These non-substantiality and temporariness of a sound is comparable with nature of mind, spirit and unconsciousness. The synesthesia perception of audiovisuality is from desire to physically express an evidence of invisibility.
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I do not agree that “people try to make a bridge between these kinds of sensors” intentionally. Instead, I think the synesthesia comes from our past experience unconsciously. No matter the “pitch-size” or “hearing color”, they are our conditioned reflex. Our past experience tells us a big and heavy stuff always generates low-pitch sound, the red color always appears in violent scene and a brown color coffee is always bitter. So when those conditions repeat again, the connections will appear in our mind.
We can hardly imagine that a blind man has a “hearing-color” synestheia, since he never saw color before, he has no experience.
However, I prefer to say “people try to make bridge between two things which have symbolic similarity. The symbol is an advanced kind of synesthiea. Because, that does not depend on our experience. For example, the fifty stars on American National flag refer the fifty states in US. A cross is the symbol of life and death. We have no experience about the relationship of star and state, cross and death, but we still have a strong synethiea. I think the reason is that the symbolic similarity comes from the culture system rather than our daily life.
I expect Yuni can bring the symbolic similarity into the research of synethiea.
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