91Èȱ¬

Musician, inventor and broadcaster LJ Rich hears the world in a very different way to most of us; her synaesthesias means everyday sounds are transformed into symphonies. She lets us into her world using technology she has invented called 'Glitching', which transforms our sonic experience of the world in real time. She also explains why Ian's presenting voice is 'like a river' and plays for us the beautiful sound of a good cup of coffee.

‘Emerald’ is the latest collection from Ruth Padel. As Ruth explains, she was already writing poetry with a focus on the colour green when her mother died. The result is a collection of poems that examine grief, often through this lens of colour. Listen to our podcast edition on 91Èȱ¬ Sounds for an extra reading from Ruth. Emerald, and Ruth’s other collections, are published by Chatto.

For poet and performer Abi Palmer, her synaesthesia causes music to be accompanied by images. These images are heightened by the experience of being in water, so in a special commission for The Verb we asked Abi to ‘take a musical bath’. The result is ‘Les Noces’, inspired by taking a bath whilst listening to Stravinsky, and full of images both jarring and smooth. As Abi explains, despite her prior ignorance of the plot of the ballet, it still found its way into her poem. Abi is working on her debut collection, which is forthcoming from Penned in the Margins.

Hannah Silva does not experience synaesthesia, but she would very much like to. As a result her work is often influenced by a fascination with the cross modal. Hannah demonstrates her ‘Musical Shirt’, made for her by sound artist Tomomi Adachi. The shirt allows her to transform her movements into sound. Hannah also explores the possibilities of not one but two musical shirts, working in collaboration with Tomomi to create ‘Pluto is a Planet’.

Hannah's latest release is the album 'Talk in a Bit'.

What colour is that vowel? Linguist and Verb regular Rob Drummond has been looking into the colour associations that we all have with certain vowel sounds. His research shows that many of the patterns are consistent with those who experience sound/colour synaesthesia.