October 13, 2018 | Saturday
A two day workshop brought up at the European Union Information and Culture Centre in Pristina sounds, music, senses, mathematics, biology, architecture, colours and everything in a mixing process.
An exclusive workshop on the 11th and 12th of October welcomed composer and musician Liburn Jupolli for an introduction to learning and its mechanisms in perspective with the rare case of ‘Synesthesia’.
15 participants were introduced to Synesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.
“There are people who can perceive and experience, let’s say, January February and March thinking the same colour, just as there are people who have compound senses between music and colour. When I was in high school I couldn’t grasp the fact why we learn mathematics, and later on when I started studying I understood that there is a way of learning mathematics through music” says Liburn Jupolli.
The workshop focused on the music there is on each person’s brain.
Participants listed to “So what” by Miles David, “Bleed” by Meshuggah, “Rrugëve” by Genc Salihu and Martha Argeric in Liszt Piano Concert Nr 1, and without looking at videos had to draw on their emotions, using words or painting.
“I am totally more sensitive when it comes to timbre. If there is something I cannot comprehend on semantic terms, I convert it to sound and it becomes easier” says Jupolli while interacting with participants of the workshop at the EUICC, tailored specially to understand if anyone from the participants is one of these special people called synesthetes.
There are two overall forms of Synesthesia: Projective synesthesia: people who project will see actual colours, forms, or shapes when stimulated (the widely understood version of synesthesia) Associative synesthesia: people who feel a very strong and involuntary connection between the stimulus and the sense that it triggers.
At the end of the workshop, participants conducted the famous “Synesthesia” battery test to see if they are coupled with the 6% of the population that have their senses coupled.
Liburn Jupolli is a composer, pianist and innovator in the field of classical music and alternative genres. He has a specific interest in innovation of musical instruments and improvement of musical communication and education, as a holistic communication medium and as a tool that can serve for teaching other subjects, such as mathematics. Currently, he is studying in France, where he obtained his Master’s Degree in EdTech, with a focus in development of musical instruments through tech and multisensory learning at CRI – Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire – Paris Descartes, where he is a PhD Candidate.