“Music represents life. A particular piece of music may
describe a real, fictional or abstract scene from almost any area of human
experience or imagination. It is the musicians job to paint a picture which communicates
to the audience the scene the composer is trying to describe.”
“The several hundred articles and reviews written about me
every year add up to a total of many thousands, only a handful accurately
describe my hearing impairment.”
“For some reason we tend to make a distinction between
hearing a sound and feeling a vibration, in reality they are the same thing.”
“It is worth pointing out at this stage that I am not totally
deaf, I am profoundly deaf.”
“Eventually I managed to distinguish the rough pitch of
notes by associating where on my body I felt the sound with the sense of
perfect pitch I had before losing my hearing. The low sounds I feel mainly in
my legs and feet and high sounds might be particular places on my face, neck
and chest.”
“So far we have the hearing of sounds and the feeling of
vibrations. There is one other element to the equation, sight. We can also see
items move and vibrate. If I see a drum head or cymbal vibrate or even see the
leaves of a tree moving in the wind then subconsciously my brain creates a
corresponding sound.”
“I need to lip-read to understand speech but my awareness of
the acoustics in a concert venue is excellent. For instance, I will sometimes
describe an acoustic in terms of how thick the air feels.”
– some quotes by Dame Evelyn Glennie taken from her fascinating,
clear and concise1993 Hearing Essay
Even though Dame Evelyn has described what appears to be a
collection of different types of synesthetic experiences, including an
interesting combination of perfect pitch with pitch-body part synaesthesia, she
has not used the word synaesthesia once in this essay. In fact, I have failed
to find any mention of synaesthesia anywhere in her personal website. All the
same, her writing gives me the impression that she would have a tougher time
trying to imagine the experiences of a non-synaesthete than she would have trying
to imagine the experiences of a fully hearing person.
Glennie, Evelyn (1993) Hearing essay. Evelyn.co.uk
http://www.examiner.com/article/olympic-opening-ceremony-photos-industrial-revolution-had-evelyn-glennie-s-beat
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetorch/2012/07/27/157514560/a-raucous-riotous-and-audacious-opening-ceremony
http://www.evelyn.co.uk/Resources/Essays/Hearing%20Essay.pdf
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=DARiLCJc0dEC&q=glennie#v=snippet&q=glennie&f=false
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1601631596/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
http://www.evelyn.co.uk/literature.html#./
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