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Brian
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Posted by: brian 10/30/2006 12:47 PM
So I figure for my first "real" entry I should start by defining synaesthesia and providing a brief backgoround.

The word synaesthesia comes from the Greek words syn meaning union and aisthesis meaning sensation.

Synaesthesia is the perception of one mode of sensation aroused by the stimulation of another sense.  For our purposes here we are talking about the visual sense of color being aroused by the aural sense of sound.

Richard Cytowic states that true synaesthesia must meet at least four of the five following criteria:
  1. involuntary but elicited
  2. projected
  3. durable and discrete
  4. memorable
  5. emotional
Alexander Scriabin was one of the first composers to truly work with color and music.  Scriabin wrote that he could see color in terms of different tonal areas.  His orchestral piece Promethius was composed with the intent that color was to be projected on to a screen during the performance of the piece.  The colors to be projected were the colors that Scriabin saw when he heard these sounds.

Below is Scriabin's Synesthetic System as found in Faubion Bowers biography of Scriabin.
Note      Color
C         Red
C#        Violet
D         Yellow
D#        Steel
E         Pearly White*
F         Dark Red
F#        Blue
G         Rosy Orange
G#        Violet Purple
A         Green
A#        Steel (glint of metal)
B         Pearly Blue
* Pearly white has been alternately described as moonshine, frost color and bluish pearl.
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