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Have you ever had a tune stick into your brain? Which are those songs which make you feel happy, relaxed, excited, nostalgic, ...? It is not new that music affects our feelings but here I bring you the first of several musical entries and, to begin with, I'm introducing a musical scale (3:04) which was (and still is) spontaneously used all over the world throughout time and by very different cultures. A proof that we all share some common musical sense. In addition, and marginally related, I'll tell you about the first officially recognised cyborg which turns out to be a painter which can only see in black and white but, in his case, he sees colours through music hardwired in his head.
In the following video you can see Bobby McFerrin (a director and capella singer better known as the writer of "Don't Worry Be Happy" [play]) achieving on-live an improvised chorus from the audience of the World Science Festival. The funny thing is that he trains the audience with just two notes and, intuitively, they automatically know which are the rest of the notes of the scale they are singing: the pentatonic scale. Careful with the song, it's catchy.
The pentatonic scale is so common among all humanity that it has been used equally from ancient Greeks to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" [play] solo. Maybe some of you can explain to me why this scale is so common but my humble guess is that it has as many pitches as we have fingers (quite handy for primitive instruments).
The pentatonic scale is all about music embedded in all our heads, but Neil Harbisson (the first officially recognised cyborg) literally has music in his head. Neil has a condition called achromatopsia which makes him see only in black and white (don't mix up with synesthesia which is to perceive through one sense what you should feel through another). However, after assisting to a lecture on cybernetics given by Adam Montandon (a student in Plymouth University) and explaining to him about his condition, both of them started working, and suceeded in creating the eyeborg. From that day on, Neil has a laptop on his back and a webcam in his face which, depending on the colours in front of him, it plays some tones into his ears. Therefore, he hears colours.
He is a painter, he hears colours then, why not to create paintings based on their tune? In his personal webpage you can see several paintings which, to him, they represent several famous songs ("Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor" [play], among others).
As always, I dare you to comment and I propose you two topics: tell me which is your favourite famous person with synesthesia (you can start with this list) and please share with us a link to the songs which affect your feelings the most (you could use any music sharing service such as goear, Spotify, blip.fm, ...).
The pentatonic scale is so common among all humanity that it has been used equally from ancient Greeks to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" [play] solo. Maybe some of you can explain to me why this scale is so common but my humble guess is that it has as many pitches as we have fingers (quite handy for primitive instruments).
The pentatonic scale is all about music embedded in all our heads, but Neil Harbisson (the first officially recognised cyborg) literally has music in his head. Neil has a condition called achromatopsia which makes him see only in black and white (don't mix up with synesthesia which is to perceive through one sense what you should feel through another). However, after assisting to a lecture on cybernetics given by Adam Montandon (a student in Plymouth University) and explaining to him about his condition, both of them started working, and suceeded in creating the eyeborg. From that day on, Neil has a laptop on his back and a webcam in his face which, depending on the colours in front of him, it plays some tones into his ears. Therefore, he hears colours.
He is a painter, he hears colours then, why not to create paintings based on their tune? In his personal webpage you can see several paintings which, to him, they represent several famous songs ("Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor" [play], among others).
As always, I dare you to comment and I propose you two topics: tell me which is your favourite famous person with synesthesia (you can start with this list) and please share with us a link to the songs which affect your feelings the most (you could use any music sharing service such as goear, Spotify, blip.fm, ...).
Acknowledgements:
- Thanks to Berti for letting me know about Mc Ferrin's video.
I love this entry, specially because I'd already heard of sinaesthesia, by the way, although it's a genetic stuff, It's believed you can be trained to get that skill (http://http://bit.ly/cNBype)
ReplyDeletePS: My favourite famous synaesthetic person is Rychard Feynman, a master storyteller, I recommend his documentary: http://bit.ly/cBavq1 (the pleasure of finding things out)
Ah, the song that gives me goosebumps is "Mad World" from Gary Jules, It's one of the "Donnie Darko" Soundtrack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1MlvVc4)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you finally had the pleasure of finding out how to post a comment, I know you've had your problems ;-).
ReplyDeleteI wrote down that documentary for later.
From the list famous synesthetic people, I highlight Eddie Van Halen and Stevie Wonder. Rimsky-Korsakov and Mozart are believed to be synesthetics as well. From the Wikipedia, I quote about Mozart:
<< He said that the key of D Major had a warm "orangey" sound to it, while B flat minor was blackish. A major was a rainbow of colors to him. This may explain why he wrote some of his music using different colors for different music notes. Also, why much of his music is in more major keys. >>
No references to backup up those comments, though.
And about music and feelings, I pick to easy ones: "Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird" (http://bit.ly/c3EUkg) to cheer you up and "Radiohead - Creep" (http://bit.ly/d2eD7U) to bring you down. Hope you like them.
What a coincide, Bobby McFerrin is playing in Málaga at the end of July! http://www.teatrocervantes.com/es/genero/musica/ciclo/61/espectaculo/928. There are still plenty of tickets available, ranging from 40€ to a paltry 10€.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I won't be in Málaga during those dates. I wish I could, and more with those prices. Maybe Mayca or anybody else in the lab fancy a little bit of capella reggae.
ReplyDeleteI can't choose only one, so they're the nominees:
ReplyDelete-Franz Liszt.
-Rimsky-Korsakov.
-¡Steve Vai! Ask one 'jevi' why.
-Duke Ellington
-Stevie wonder.
Long time ago I saw a documentary from "Redes 2.0" about synesthesia. Is not only a mixture of senses, also could affect to learned things. They showed the case of a man who see colour numbers with different sizes when he touches different textures and temperatures.
As a anectdote; I heard about blind people who never saw colours, trained to think in colours, in this same way, as textures and temperatures. To they, blue is cold and hard, brown is warm and soft...
About a concrete song that makes me feel (bipolar) some times happy,sometimes sad, even feel rage (don't know why) is a Jimi Hendrix's song called "Bold as love" specially the one minute guitar solo at the ending.
http://goear.com/listen/775a9c2/bold-as-love-jimi-hendrix
Also Debussy's Clair de Lune, in this case, it always makes me feel nostalgia. It started when I read about why it was composed, a extremely hard love story.
http://goear.com/listen/8b99712/clair-de-lune-debussy