This is a list of famous people who have, or had, the neurological condition synesthesia. Following that, there is a list of people who are often wrongly believed to have had synesthesia because they used it as a device in their art, poetry or music (referred to as pseudo-synesthetes). Finally, there is a short list of people who have received a speculative, posthumous diagnosis of synesthesia, or who are thought to possibly be synesthetes based on second or third hand sources. These are listed as "still under review" in the expectation that additional data will help to clarify their status.
Synesthetes
Tori Amos
Singer/songwriter/pianist (born August 22, 1963). Music → color.
"The song appears as light filament once I've cracked it. As long as I've been doing this, which is more than thirty-five years, I've never seen a duplicate song structure. I've never seen the same light creature in my life. Obviously similar chord progressions follow similar light patterns, but try to imagine the best kaleidoscope ever."
– From the autobiography, "Piece by Piece"
Rollo Armstrong
Producer/mixer, member of Faithless (born 1967). Music → color.
"He gets on with the broad strokes, textures and colors — that’s how he hears music, he’s got that synesthesia (a phenomenon where sounds have color), he says ‘make it really sad, like a rainy day, I want to hear thunder’ — and I get on with all the anal fiddly bits."
– Sister Bliss talking about her working relationship with Rollo Armstrong.
Steve Aylett
British author (born 1967). Music → color.
"It’s not as strange or unusual as it’s made out to be - it’s just a bit of a crossover of different senses. So I see music, taste some colours and so on. I think the music thing is very common, but people tell themselves that that isn’t what’s happening."
– From Fractal Matter interview with Steve Aylett.
Amy Beach
American pianist and composer (September 5, 1867 – December 27, 1944). It turns out that the 19th-century American classical composer Amy Beach had both perfect pitch and a set of colors for musical keys (musical keys → color). Here are two quotes from biographies:
"Other interesting stories about Amy’s musical personality and her astounding abilities as a prodigy are recounted in almost all previous biographical writings. One such story is Amy’s association of certain colors with certain keys. For instance, Amy might ask her mother to play the ‘purple music’ or the ‘green music.’ The most popular story, however, seems to be the one about Amy’s going on a trip to California and notating on staff paper the exact pitches of bird calls she heard."
– From Jeanell Brown, p. 16.
"Amy’s mother encouraged her to relate melodies to the colors blue, pink, or purple, but before long Amy had a wider range of colors, which she associated with certain major keys. Thus C was white, F-sharp black, E yellow, G red, A green, A-flat blue, D-flat violet or purple, and E-flat pink. Until the end of her life she associated these colors with those keys."
– From Walter Jenkins, pp. 5-6.
Leonard Bernstein
American composer and conductor (August 25, 1918 - October 14, 1990). Timbre → color synesthesia, which he talked about during his "Young People's Concerts" series (the "What is orchestration" segment).
Eugen Bleuler
Swiss psychiatrist (April 30, 1857 - July 15, 1939). Originator of the term schizophrenia . Phonemes → color.
Sir Robert Cailliau
World Wide Web pioneer at CERN (January 26, 1947). His website includes his color-coded alphabet.
Stephanie Carswell
Australian actress and soprano (born 1985). Lexeme → color.
"Monday is yellow; Tuesday is quite a deep red; Wednesday is sort of a grass green; Thursday is a much darker green but still quite bright; Friday has always confused me, it’s either a very dark purple, blue or grey; Saturday is white; and Sunday is sort of a light peach colour. For anyone who doesn’t understand what’s happening here, I have a neurological condition called synesthesia which means that I ‘see’ words in colours."
– From Stephanie Carswell Q & A web site .
Antoine d'Abbadie
French geographer and explorer (January 3, 1810 - March 19, 1897). Number form synesthesia.
Duke Ellington
Composer and pianist (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974). Timbre → color.
"I hear a note by one of the fellows in the band and it’s one color. I hear the same note played by someone else and it’s a different color. When I hear sustained musical tones, I see just about the same colors that you do, but I see them in textures. If Harry Carney is playing, D is dark blue burlap. If Johnny Hodges is playing, G becomes light blue satin."
– Ellington, as quoted in Don George, p. 226.
Richard Feynman
Physicist (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988). Winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics. Feynman had colored letters and numbers (graphemes → color).
"When I see equations, I see the letters in colors – I don't know why. As I'm talking, I see vague pictures of Bessel functions from Jahnke and Emde's book, with light-tan j's, slightly violet-bluish n's, and dark brown x's flying around. And I wonder what the hell it must look like to the students."
– From Richard Feynman, p. 59.
Hélène Grimaud
French pianist (born November 7, 1969). Grimaud has colored numbers (graphemes → color) and sees music in colors (music → color).
"It was when I was eleven, and working on the F sharp major Prelude from the first book of Bach's Well-tempered Clavier - I perceived something that was very bright, between red and orange, very warm and vivid: an almost shapeless stain, rather like what you would see in the recording control-room if the image of sound were projected on a screen. But as numbers had always had colours for me - two was yellow, four was red, five was green - and as I have always found music evocative, I didn't regard this as unusual. It was more the idea of colour than colour itself. Certain pieces always project me into a particular colour-world. Sometimes it's a result of the tonality - C minor is black, and D minor, the key that has always been closest to me, being the most dramatic and poignant is blue."
– From Credo - Hélène Grimaud interviewed by Michael Church.
Robyn Hitchcock
Singer/songwriter (born March 3, 1953). Multiple synesthiae.
"A thought struck me: if my new album sounds this good on a walkman, what would Roxy Music sound like? A mere two years later I bought one and found out. However, on a train, a few years later still, I had negative synaesthesia eating a bacon sandwich and listening to a solo Ferry album, which turned me vegetarian."
– From the liner notes of the I Wanna Go Backwards box set.
David Hockney
Artist (born July 9, 1937). Music → color. Hockney sees synesthetic colors to musical stimuli. In general, this does not show up in his painting or photography artwork too much. However, it is a common underlying principle in his construction of stage sets for various ballets and operas, where he bases the background colors and lighting upon his own seen colors while listening to the music of the theater piece he is working on.
Billy Joel
Singer/songwriter/composer (born May 9, 1949) Sound → color.
Kilford
British Painter (born 1975). Music → color. Known as The Music Painter, Kilford’s paintings are the physical representation of music based on the colours he sees when he hears music. His paintings are created by either painting live alongside musicians during their performances or in his studio where he either creates paintings based on individual tracks or is visited by musicians who perform as Kilford paints. Kilford has painted live alongside a wide range of musicians including Paul Weller, Robert Plant, Damon Albarn, Black Eyed Peas, Brian Eno, Deep Purple, Status Quo and The Charlatans amongst others.
Brooks Kerr
Jazz pianist. Musical notes → color.
"With the little bit of sight he possessed, Brooks was unable to read or to identify objects, and lead sheets remained a forever closed door to him, but he was able to differentiate colors. I remember when he first told us that in his mind’s eye every musical note was a different color and that the scale resembled a rainbow. He fingered a C on the piano, explaining, ‘This note is red.’ He hit a D. ‘This one is dark blue.’ He hit an F. ‘This is
Sand Scripts' weddingfavoroutlet.com - Product Catalog
WHITE WEDDING BELLS Paper bag luminaries, approx 5.5” x 10.25” Paper Bag Luminaries. 10 pack: Click for Additional Product Information $6.99
Sand Scripts' weddingfavoroutlet.com - Product Catalog
WHITE PALM TREE Paper bag luminaries, approx 5.5” x 10.25” Paper Bag Luminaries. 10 Pack. Click for Additional Product Information $6.99: Click for Large Quantity Discounts
shop.sandscripts.com - Product Catalog
Luminary Bags - Palm - Additional Colors - 50 pack: PALM TREE Paper bag luminaries, approx 5.5” x 10.25” Paper Bag Luminaries. 50 Pack - select color.
shop.sandscripts.com - Product Catalog
WHITE WEDDING BELLS Paper bag luminaries, approx 5.5” x 10.25” Paper Bag Luminaries. 10 pack: CLICK FOR ADDITIONAL PRODUCT INFORMATION $6.99
LUMINARY BAGS - Printing | Invites | Cards | Embossers | Favors ...
WHITE on WHITE Paper bag luminaries. approx 5” x 3 1/4” x 10” Paper Bag Luminaries. Candles not included. Tea Lights and sand weights sold separately below.
Bags - Brown Shopping Bags, White Shopping Bags, Brown Paper Bags ...
White paper bags in various sizes and quantities, #6 are often used as luminaries. White Shopping Bags White Twine Handled Paper Shopping Bags are available in six (6) sizes and ...
Shop for Lunch-Size White Paper Bag (5-1/4"x3-1/2"x10-3/4") Online at ...
Our mini white and kraft paper bags are perfect for party favors. How about using the larger ones for vases (just don’t forget to add the H 2 0) or luminaries to line your drive or ...
How to Make Holiday Luminaries | eHow.com
Luminaries are little candle lanterns made from small paper bags that line a walkway or driveway. ... This keeps the bags more "square". White bags look great.
Shop for Small White Paper Bag (3"x1-7/8"x6.25") Online at Garnish ...
Our mini white and kraft paper bags are perfect for party favors. How about using the larger ones for vases (just don’t forget to add the H 2 0) or luminaries to line your drive or ...
Luminaries Bags 50 Pack from Windy City Novelties
Online store featuring luminaries bags 50 pack and other party items and novelties for ... LUMINARIE BAGS. White paper bags, designed to hold any of our L.E.D. Flameless Candles.