psychology of keys

[Lorenzo]

Irish fiddle tunes in A=Green...that makes sense to me!

I was sitting by a fairly large mountain stream last weekend, at the foot of Mt. Rainier, and was thinking how wonderful the low pitch of a cascading stream can be. In fact, I think it was B...a low low B or Bb. Wouldn't you hate it if waterfalls were in F...I mean two octaves above middle C? At the same time, I'm glad mosquitos don't buzz in low B. Now that would be chilling!

[Zubivka]

I can't get over what I learnt here about Scriabine inventing the first Disco light...
Well since this gets to be a hard facts thread...

It's called synesthesia. Well, across the pond and in Canada it's synaesthesia. Lord knows what the French call it.

Beats me.
In Russia, you'd say Synastasia Alexandrovna, unless you're a close friend and just call her Syn. Her father A. N. Scriabine wouldn't call her Syn, he merely whistled.

Nano? Here's another question for you.
See, we got this Uhlan piper* here, endowed with a perfect pitch and a less than perfect taste.
He remarked aloud during a session that he had just farted in F.
Is this a case of synaesthesia, or just sinaesthetics?

* Don't believe what they say: originally, it was a cavalry instrument...

[Nanohedron]

I would venture sinesthetics. I'd be wary of his declarations, though. Everyone knows that farts are as chromatic as kazoos. If he can render an even tone, point out to him next time that the sheer muscle control required for doing so brings up some rather unsavory questions.

[talasiga]

Melodic music works because of the relationships between intervals not on their relation to an arbitrary absolute frequency.

Yes John I am like minded.
In my melodic tradition (yet again I must mention it)
it is not the key notes as in C D E etc that are attributed colours and other associations but the notes as in the tonic sol-fa.
Thus it is the doh or the re or the diminished re etc etc that will have certain attributes
regardless whether the tonic doh is C D E Eb etc etc.
The tradition is melodic and the voice predominates
and each person is deemed to have their own unique voice
(of whatever key).
Each singer must uncover their uniqueness in the process of
musical development.
Each person's doh (or Sa as it is called in the Indian tradition)
will evince the characteristics of doh regardless of key.

[dreamerlass]

The composer Amy Beach heard keys in color. She had perfect pitch and discovered that various colors corresponded with certain keys in her mind.

Good to know I'm not alone in my insanity... That particular one anyways...