Songs for Synaesthesia I.

I have a delightful condition called synaesthesia, which is a confusion, a muddling if you will, of two or more senses. For instance some people taste sounds, others see colours when they look at a letter or a word, or some people can feel colours (green things are “sticky”, yellow things “slick”).

In Cytowic's The Man Who Tasted Shapes he begins by describing exactly that – relating an anecdote wherein a friend of his was cooking and while tasting the dinner-to-be declared that the chicken “didn't have enough points”. Once it did have enough “points” (via the addition of salt or other spices) the meal was deemed palatable. Obviously the chicken wasn't physically spiky, but when he tasted things he felt shapes – the chicken could just as well have tasted smooth or hillocky, but when the taste-shape was just right so was the chicken.

Synaesthesia is a little hard to explain, but it's a theme that pops up a lot in art and also features in heaps of bad emo poetry. New Order's song title “Blue Monday” comes to mind, where the Monday isn't really blue (how could it be?) but to a synaesthete it could be exactly that. Or it could be purple. It's different for each synaesthete.

It's important to note that in laboratory tests of synaesthetes that there is nothing wrong with the conjoined senses themselves – the senses of touch, hearing, smell, sight and taste all work perfectly well by themselves. It is just that the synaesthete has what you can think of as additional sense – that of sight-touch, smell-sound or any other combination you can think of.

My form of synaesthesia is one of the more common forms – where audible sounds evoke visual images. In particular, mine is heavily musical based.

In short, I see music.

Not all the time, mind you, but most of the time. I see music the same way I can ask you to picture Superman flying through Metropolis – you're not actually seeing him – but in your mind's eye you are. It's a little like that, although for me somewhat more like the Terminator's visual overlay – it's in front of me, and yet somehow still in my mind's eye.

I thought I might list some songs here that are truly evocative for me – these pieces of music that deliver some really rich visual imagery and are ones that I like to turn to again and again.

Now, to any other synaesthetes with the same form who might read this please note: yes, my instrument's sounds may look totally different to yours. They may not even closely share the same shape, texture colour or movement. Please do not get offended – this is my experience I am sharing. Feel free to leave comments though.

(I once offended another syn years ago by daring to point out that while his piano colour was identical to mine his mandolin was slightly out. He flew into bit of a rage and unleashed some fairly angry verbiage at me. Sorry!)

And now onto the songs!

Marillion: “Season's End” from Season's End

This is the first song in which I became consciously aware of my synaesthesia, and that it may not be something shared by all people. I'd always seen music, but this if the first time I noticed individual instruments. There's a portion of the music where there's a circular tinkling bell thing happening, and it starts off so low that it's almost imperceptible to the ear....except I was seeing a tiny, white vibrating rubber band thing in the lower left hand side of my vision. Sort of how they describe superstrings in String Theory.

I remember thinking, “What the hell is that?” and concentrating on it until the instrument audibly resolved itself and then thinking “oh, it's the timpani-bell thing”. I told my brother about this and he looked at me like I was mad.

And so began a flurry of listening to music to see as many different instruments as possible.

Low: “The Plan”, from The Curtain Hits the Cast.

This is bit of a rare synaesthetic song for me, in that I can visualise Mimi Parker's vocals as if they are an instrument too. Not such a great mystery here, as there are lots of long, drawn out notes that almost blend into the background low-fi music, but it is unique.

The whole song has a warm, russet and yellow look to it – almost like oak leaves in autumn. The guitar undulates nicely, and the whole visual scene is one of peace and golden rays. The bassline when it comes is visually buried, but has sharp edges like a concrete step – crenelated up close but smoothed from afar. Hard to describe really.

The Plan is just one of those songs that's soothing to the ears and absolutely gorgeous to look at. It's a favourite of mine. Beautiful, beautiful colours, and very autumnal. Warm.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor: “Moya” from Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada

There's so many GYBE tracks and Silver Mt. Zion tracks I could add here and since the music can be quite similar there's little point in me listing the whole lot. But for Moya not only is the music richly layered so are the visuals. This one's hard to explain as there's so much to it, but the strings are layered undulating hills of yellow, browns, reds and gold. It's gorgeous, gorgeous stuff. Plus, like all GYBE music the song changes and develops and builds over time into a musical and visual ... orgasm. Heh. Sample here.

I'll add more songs as time progresses, as I recall and listen to more that are particularly evocative for me.