[Video Link] BB pal Joe Sabia points us to this incredible video by Evan Shinners, Julliard-trained pianist and "best Bach player around." In the video, Shinners shows the world the colors he sees when he plays: he has synesthesia. You can follow him on Twitter, and check him out live on one of his upcoming tour dates.

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Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: brain • mind • music • neuroscience • Science • synesthesia

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Might want to check what the [Video Link] points to :)
- http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
  
  derp
EH

Pretty sure there’s a natural color frame around 0:29. What note was that? It might be important.
Kirke Godfrey

looks like jitter is flipping out…
silkox

I never imagined I’d be a piano snob, but couldn’t he have put all this work into a recording with a better piano? (Or — more snobby still — a harpsichord?)
- stephenjames
  
  I actually dig the vibe of that piano!
- http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/TPPGV7RNFA6ZIGE34KJC4MBVW4 Nhoj
  
  yeah. i was kind of perturbed at first by the ‘saloon’ sounding offkey piano, but i dug it after a while. however, I don’t experience synesthesia with notes the way it’s interpreted in the video. It makes me wonder how different people with synesthesia visually perceive their colors.
http://twitter.com/joeybladb joe k.

Owwww! My head aches really bad now… Stupid Bach!
silkox

Needs more cowbell!
SomeGuyNamedMark

Bach meets LSD
endymion

Not sure about those colors… but this was a FANTASTIC performance of Bach. Almost Gouldian.
http://twitter.com/BettinaTizzy Beverly Millson

I am in complete AW of Shinners and GRATEFUL to him for helping me to understand a phenomenon that is, in itself, as deliciously extraordinary as his performance.
http://twitter.com/meatstack Craig C.

So, to the wiki I went to research Synesthesia, and I’ve actually experienced the taste->sight thing, especially when focusing on wine/coffee tasting. I often visualized different tastes being above or behind, or sliding through, or to the left/right of others. I would have never thought that had a name.
- taghag
  
  ask around in your family! synesthesia is often a family trait (not necessarily genetic, just “runs in families”).
http://www.facebook.com/people/Newman-Steven/100001777326992 Newman Steven

This is incredible!
stephenjames

I dig him!
http://profile.yahoo.com/5JKE66PO46LYMWXFHZOB3MYBPY Tim

Check how, how he tagged his Video…
http://profile.yahoo.com/CIIX7P6ON57ZTHS6DF6F6YWCD4 Tuna

That is absolute rubbish. If that is synesthesia, I’m glad I don’t have because it would lead to epilepsy.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  You might want to read up on the etiology of epilepsy.
  - drabkikker
    
    Entomology Man!
BDiamond

Very enjoyable performance, marred by the unnecessary exclamation at the end.
- http://www.facebook.com/teleny Alissa Mower Clough
  
  I feel it was justified. I’d feel that way after playing that — I once played Joy of Man’s Desiring on a recorder and it made my head spin.
http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

I wonder if you should perhaps provide viewers with seizure warnings. I don’t know if that’s the sort of thing that triggers them exactly, but it was the first thing I thought about.
TheMudshark

Which leaves the question: Why would anyone without synesthesia play Bach?
Paul Renault

If you have a friend who has a copy of The Kronos Quartet’s Short Stories, borrow it. On it, there’s a track, Spectre by John Oswald. Mr. Oswald hears sounds when he sees things. Spectre is what he heard when he visited the Grand Canyon.

The Youtube video has really poor audio, so it doesn’t do it justice…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH1RLz5q-vk
666beast1

I won’t be taking LSD while watching this clip because I am already freaked out.
120decibel

In case you are in Berlin at the time there is an excibition coming up featureing artists with synaesthesia: http://www.cross-senses.de/
dnamama

I can barely handle my alarm clock going off and an IMAX movie in the same week, so you can imagine what was going through my head watching this. But the talent is so immense, I couldn’t even close my eyes to regroup. (I wish I could handle more stimulation; the world would be so much more fun.) I’m completely confident my husband would not nod off during one of his concerts, so we’re just going to have to deal with traffic one night soon and catch Evan in person. REALLY hoping this guy is playing on the XM Symphony Hall Tribute to Bach (on his birthday) tomorrow. If not, they have truly missed the boat. The world has changed since I studied Haydn and Mozart in Spring, 1982. Thank God. Bravo.
http://www.facebook.com/teleny Alissa Mower Clough

Laying into the prescription meds a bit too heavily, eh there, Glen?

Pianist with synesthesia performs Bach "in color" (video)

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