Klarinet Archive - Posting 000726.txt from 2002/05

From: w7wright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: Re: [kl] Synaesthesia and Science
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 18:51:15 -0400

<><> Tony Pay wrote:
No-one claims that synaesthesia doesn't exist. *Science* certainly
doesn't. But equally, no-one (I hope) claims that synaesthesia is
essential for appreciating music.

Synesthesia is relevant to the extent that it is (or is not) an
exaggeration of an otherwise normal function.

That is, do non-aural pathways participate in processing (either
listening or playing) music? If 'yes', then a severe case of
synesthesia may supply clues about the underlying mechanism.

Clearly the locomotor pathways participate in playing music. So if
locomotor pathways also participate in (say) recalling a pleasurable
physical experience, then we are already on the borderline of saying
that music is more than a purely aural experience. If the pleasure
happened to be (say) dancing with one's wife during a romantic evening,
we could say that this is merely a 'memory association', not part of the
process of processing music. But where do you draw the line? Is the
'width' of a musical interval (a third, a fifth, etc) intrinsically
associated via locomotor pathways with spatial awareness --- just as
some neurologists believe that spatial awareness is necessary for
mathematical logic?

This is why synesthesia is interesting to me.

Cheers,
Bill

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