Pianist Joyce Yang, who performs this month with the San Diego Symphony, “literally sees music as she plays and hears it,” writes George Varga in Thursday’s (10/4) San Diego Union Tribune. “Yang, 32, has synesthesia, an involuntary neurological condition in which the activation of one sense triggers another. In her case, hearing music triggers colors and shapes.… It was already apparent to Yang at [age eleven] that she had synesthesia…. ‘I think it was when I started to learn the Haydn Piano Concerto in D major,’ she said…. ‘It was always in my head that the piece was yellow…. I was terrible sight-reader…. I’d color some chords and draw shapes next to them to help me remember what the notes are…. I’d go to my lessons with all these colors and squiggles I’d drawn on the pages of the scores…. The teacher said, “What’s going on here?” … Little by little, I was astonished to learn other people didn’t see colors. At Juilliard, I discovered other people who said they also see colors. I learned that everyone with (synesthesia) sees something different…. It’s a driving force in our creativity and in remembering and interpreting music. Without it, I’d be very lost.’ ”
Posted October 9, 2018
