I am Dr Caroline Curwen, a researcher and educator with a passion for the intersection of music and psychology. Currently, I am a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Music & Science Lab at Durham University, researching “Musically evoked imaginings in synaesthetic and non-synaesthetic expert musicians.”
I trained as a clarinettist at the Royal Northern College of Music and I hold a PhD in Music from the University of Sheffield with a thesis entitled “Music-colour synaesthesia: A conceptual correspondence grounded in action”. My academic journey also includes extensive teaching experience in the field at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
It was not until my postgraduate studies that I discovered there was a term for the unique way I experience music: synaesthesia. For as long as I can remember, shapes, colours, and textures have come to life when I hear music, becoming an integral part of my musical experience. It was surprising to learn that not everyone shared this multisensory connection.
Unlike the more common form of tone-colour synaesthesia, where individual notes trigger specific colours, my experience is more intricate. I rarely see colours or shapes from a single tone; instead, it is the entire piece of music that evokes these vivid responses. Elements like musical style, key, and structure are just as important as the sounds themselves in shaping this experience. It is not something I can easily categorise as purely perceptual or metaphorical; rather, it is an automatic and conscious response that deeply influences how I connect with and interpret music.
The focus of my doctoral research was the examination of how the shapes and colours experienced by some when listening to music may be more conceptual in nature (rather than purely perceptual as has been more commonly examined) by forming a semantic mechanism for representing abstract concepts. I also extended embodied and enactive accounts of music cognition to music-colour synaesthesia and argued that the condition might be better understood as a sensorimotor phenomenon.
Synaesthesia also presents challenges to established philosophical theories and highlights how our experiences of the world often differ somewhat from one individual to another. I believe that the importance of my research into music-colour synaesthesia is the opportunity it affords to gain a better understanding of the processes of general consciousness and cognition from person to person.
Qualifications
PhD Psychology of Music (University of Sheffield)
MA Psychology of Music (University of Sheffield)
GMus RNCM (Royal Northern College of Music)
Academic Service
- Associate Editor, Psychology of Music
- Consulting Editor, Musicae Scientiae
- Treasurer, ESCOM
- Co-Editor, Durham Undergraduate Research in Music (DURMS)
CAROLINE CURWEN 