A Compositional Exploration of Auditory-Visual Synaesthesia

Anderson, Corin

Abstract

This thesis is an autoethnographic exploration of how my music composition practice is influenced by my auditory-visual synaesthesia. I perceive music as coloured and textured shapes – ‘photisms’ – in my mind’s eye. There are few first-person accounts of synaesthesia’s impact on music composition processes and outputs. The aim of the study is to investigate how my synaesthetic experiences affect the music I make, through the creation and analysis of an album of electronic music titled Photisms. The accompanying textual document employs an autoethnographic method proposed by Chang (2008), providing a first-person account of my own synaesthesia and analysing how it influences my composition processes and outputs. Firstly, I consider the impact timbre has on the shape and colour of my photisms. I discuss how various timbral transformation techniques can result in photism multiplication and emergence, and composite photisms (terms I have coined to define previously uninvestigated phenomena). Secondly, I explain how my photisms also appear to have texture and weight, and materialise as solid, liquid, gaseous, or plasma substances. The perceived weight and state of matter of musically-induced photisms is a formerly unexplored topic in academic literature. Thirdly, the spatiality and temporality of my synaesthetic visualisations of music are examined. I explain how the perceived location of my photisms can be defined using the Cartesian coordinate system, and how tempo and speed manipulation affect my synaesthetic experiences. Finally, I explain how, through a process of audiation, I can translate visual images into music by reverse-engineering my synaesthesia. This innovative approach to music-making has not previously been investigated. Through examination of these four areas, this study demonstrates how auditoryvisual synaesthetic experiences can affect, and be exploited in, the composition of electronic music.

Citation

Anderson, C. A Compositional Exploration of Auditory-Visual Synaesthesia. (Thesis). Edinburgh Napier University

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Aug 18, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 18, 2023
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.17869/enu.2023.3170304
• Award Date: Jul 5, 2023