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What is synesthesia?

Synesthesia is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes.

On Saturday, Alyssa and I watched a British documentary about synesthesia. It was very interesting. It got me thinking about my own synesthesia once again. It was interesting because for most people who have colors and music intertwined like myself, they picture the notes going gradually from dark for low notes to brighter for higher notes. I found that off, as that’s not how it is at all with me. For me, each note/chord/key signature has its own distinct color and there’s no real progression from one to another. For example, A is red and Bb is magenta. But then, out of nowhere, there’s B which is green and C which is blue. So I think my particular sound-to-color synesthesia is more similar to grapheme-to-color synesthesia, where people associate colors with certain letters and numbers with no gradual progression in color. But I don’t associate colors with letters at all unless they are referring to music.

Certain songs where I know the key or overriding tonality are a very distinct color for me. The more I know the song, the more I see the color(s). So, like, with my own songs I see the colors very strongly (“Soldier Down” is very blue and “Surgeon” is very yellow). Same with bands I am obsessed with. For example, “Strawberry Fields Forever” is a pinkish song to me because it’s in Bb. “Penny Lane” is green because it’s in B.

For songs where I don’t know immediately what the notes involved are, my mind will still grasp at a color just as my mind is also unconsciously trying to figure out the notes, chords, etc. For example, the song “Someday” off the new Tegan & Sara album immediately jumped out at me as a magenta/purpleish song the first time I heard it, so I thought it was in either Bb or Eb. But when I sat down to figure it out, it turned out to be in C, which is blue. So I was somewhat close, but now that I know it’s in C, the song appears more blue to me (but with purple around the edges maybe). A color really isn’t associated with music until my mind knows the corresponding notes. But since I have sorta-perfect pitch I can often pick up the notes/colors pretty quickly.

Some notes/chords/keys are stronger than others. A, Bb, B, C, D, Eb, F, F# are all easy for me to spot. But E, G, G#, C# can be sometimes harder to grasp the colors because they can change depending on context. For example, E can be either blue or green depending on the song. It’s kind of annoying. But it’s never anything other than those two colors. There’s also a lightness difference between major and minor chords. F major is bright white whereas F minor is gray. B major is bright green whereas B minor is a forest green.

Occasionally, when I’m writing a song I’ll change the key because I don’t think the color I’m writing in matches the song. When I was writing “Coldplay Got Eaten By Piranhas,” I started writing it in Eb (light purple). I briefly considered changing it to E (green in this case) because it fit my vocal range a bit better, but I decided that it just didn’t work as a green song. It needed to be purple. Green just felt wrong for it. Also, I wrote the chorus of “Bad Vibrations” in A because it’s a bright red, and I wanted a bold, bright feel for it.

I tend to gravitate to keys that I can see easily (not many in G, G# and C#) and that have a warm feel to them. F major is a somewhat cold white to me, so I don’t have as many songs in F. But B major is my favorite in large part because it’s a warm yet bright green. But of course the color aspect is always secondary to the sound aspect. The colors are just an added bonus, like X-ray specs in my Rice Krispies.

Also: when synesthetes say they “see” colors, they don’t mean they literally hallucinate them. That would be insanely distracting and no one would be able to function like that. The colors happen in the mind’s eye or the imagination, whatever you want to call it. It’s no different than a non-synesthete picturing the color red. It’s just that music (or whatever) makes a synesthete picture colors involuntarily. There’s no way I can not picture red when I hear or think of A major.

Cool/weird eh?!

Here’s a list of my note/color correlations:

A – Red
Bb – Magenta/Pink
B – Green
C – Blue
C# – Cyan
D – Yellow
Eb – Magenta/Purple
E – Blue/Green
F – White
F# – Gold
G – Yellow/Orange-Ish
G# – Cyan

The new Weezer single (deep breath) “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” is out and I had to laugh at how much that riff sounds like the (dare I say) iconic bass riff in “Whales Sing” by The Shaky Hands. It’s exactly the same riff, except faster. Of course, it’s not the most original guitar phrase in the first place—I believe Otis Redding had a song with a very similar riff—but the two riffs are note-for-note the same! Of course, other than that the songs sound nothing like one another, but I thought it was worth noting. I can’t link to the Weezer song, but I’m sure you can easily find a stream of it on some music blog somewhere if you wanted to (I want you to).

Doesn’t it sound like just the thing for our boys to drum up some publicity for the new album… (kidding! …maybe)

Update 4:26 PM: I made a video comparing the riffs side by side.

Let’s start at the beginning. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a huge fan of the TV show Lost. The guys from Tiger House can attest to this, when I refused to practice or play shows on the days of the premiere and finale of the recent season. Earlier this month, ABC started a contest where Lost fans could write and record a mock theme song for Lost and then the winner would be announced at Comic-Con (which was last weekend) and they’d get their song played and everything. It’s not a life-changingly huge thing, but it’s good exposure for the winner. So I entered. I wrote a short instrumental that I thought captured the feel of Lost pretty well, and I actually ended up very happy with the end product, which I didn’t expect to be.

Well, I didn’t win. And in a bizarre turning of the tables, the winning theme song was a goofy butt-rock song with lyrics, and mine was this serious attempt at a theme song. Usually it would be the other way around; I’d do the goofy thing and then the serious thing would win. But that is cool for the guys who made the winning song, they got thousands of people visiting their Myspace as a result! But then Alyssa suggested that I do a quick edit of my theme song to a Lost trailer and post it on YouTube in time to catch some of the Comic-Con frenzy. So I did! Watch:

It’s actually been getting lots of views, which is awesome. DarkUFO (one of the big Lost fan sites) posting about it sure doesn’t hurt either! So hey, thanks fellow Lost geeks!

Alex

To further add to the deluge of Michael Jackson commentary and tributes out there in the past few days, here is a cover of “Man In The Mirror” that I recorded in an afternoon over a year ago. It was recorded just for fun, because at the time I was listening to that song a lot. I had to get it out of my system. It’s a great song!

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Download it!
[Play]

Pucknation.com asked me to contribute a list for their The List feature, which can be read here: Top Five Songs Most Often Confused For Love Songs Ever! They’re doing a Valentine’s Day theme with the lists now, and I’m always game for some rock and roll list-making, so it was pretty much meant to be. Which reminds me…I should probably update my top five albums list one of these days, as I haven’t done that for a while. BUT IT’S A SECRET LIST, I’LL NEVER TELL. Unless you give me your after dinner mints.

I don’t remember if I mentioned this yet, but I’ve started recording my next album already. Its tentative title is Missing Briefcase, although that could totally change by the time it comes out (probably sometime in 2008). I have mostly finished “Nuke Song” and am currently working on “The Zaps.” I decided to do the album one song at a time this time instead of the assembly line method of the past, since I’m in no hurry to finish it.

If you want to preview “Nuke Song,” you can watch a very lo-fi video I made for it on YouTube here. It is a poorly made video, make no mistake about it. But the song is good!

Oozing,
Alex

While I’ve been waiting for Applewine to be created from things I’ll never know, I wrote and recorded demos to eight (8) songs. At least two of them are hits: “Nuke Song” (written while watching too much CNN after North Korea tested their first nuke) and “Love Working Over Time.” Good musical notes, you see. But yeah, I should be getting the CDs in my grubby little mitts about a week from tomorrow. And shortly after that, Applewine will be available to order online.

Also, I will be co-recording the second Shaky Hands album along with Nathan Delffs, who has also recorded and played with The Castanets. That will be a fun album to make, like a unicorn party. I swear, homebrewed recordings are the best. WE’RE TAKING THE POWER BACK.

My next album is going to be called Missing Briefcase.

–Alex