The Big Picture by Lennie Peterson for January 24, 2024

Thank goodness, my music teacher told me to no longer take music. She finally gave up on me. I think she got tired of hearing nothing but wrong notes.

Van Gogh had a fantastic memory. Everything he heard went in one ear.

When was the last one? I’m not sure I got it.

I can see myself tasting the sounds of Orange and Purple!!

Thank you for the history lesson. Very sad, though. Poor man. A genius.

Isn’t that your superpower, Mr Peterson? Synesthesia, right?

Synesthetes are people who often “see” music as colors when they hear it.

I think he was a little nuts though.

Loving the newsletters

My mother-in-law, at 84, is teaching herself to play the piano.

And here I thought Van Gogh was a trombonist…

Chromaesthesia: A form of synesthesia in which nonvisual stimulation results in the experience of color sensations.

Numbers and days of the week are colors to me.

What about trombone teachers?

Synaesthesia is passing strange, associating colors with sounds is quite believable, associating shapes with flavors, less so. But apparently very real. In any case, while audio-visual synaesthesia is well known, it’s curious that the associations are pretty idiosyncratic. I.e., one person may have a strong notion of blue associated with A but another’s blue is E♭.

A BIG thank you for the large image!

That is true. There are people who “see” music in color. There is an entire music theory based on that and many music teachers encourage their students to visualize the color of the music.