“I’ll never forget I was like seven years old, I closed my eyes and that’s when it started…I started seeing sounds.”Pharrell Williams, half of production duo Neptunes (responsible for iconic instrumentals of the early 2000s like “Drop It Like It’s Hot”, “I’m a Slave 4 U, Rock Your Body, etc.) and frontman of the bandN.E.R.D., opens the band’s third opus “Seeing Sounds” with a dreamy anecdote backed by jumping strings illustrating the first time he became aware of his apparent ability to see sounds. This phenomenon is called synesthesia. At the age of 12 when I first listened to the album, I assumed that the claim to see sounds had been nothing more than a metaphor to exaggerate Williams’s deep-seated infatuation with music. In my mind, there was no possible way something so incredible could exist naturally. For instance, the eyes of the mantis shrimp have many more color receptors than human beings, giving access to colors that are literally unfathomable for mankind. The same way humans cannot visualize the color spectrum of the mantis shrimp, I could not visualize music manifesting itself into my vision.This was until I stumbled upon an NPR interview years later in which Williams delved deeper into the topic of synesthesia and his association of visual and auditory elements.
Williams’s prominence in the music industry (and seeming immortality) is undeniable, and he credits his musical talent to his synesthesia. In the NPR interview he states, “I know when something is in key because it either matches the same color or it doesn't." It is not surprising that there are a number of other notable musicians who are known to be synesthetes (Kanye West, Duke Ellington, etc.). It is almost expected for one who experiences sound with nearly half of their senses to find success and fulfillment in music. Needless to say, synesthetes spark quite a bit of envy within me.
The majority of my day-to-day consists of feeding my visceral obsession with music. I filter out the cacophony of the world around me, essentially living the life of a millennial hermit to my headphones. Additionally, I make (poor) sample-based hip-hop instrumentals as a pastime. A reality in which I experience sound with two senses instead of one is a reality I can only find in dreams and Lucy. I will spend hours slaving away on FL studio chopping loops from an Aretha Franklin track and end up trashing the project because of my incapability to find the right drums to layer over the sample.
I am not unhappy with my current state -- I have nothing to complain about on a physical level. However, I am bitter that something that is so incredulous to me is simply a fact of life to a select few. Then again, my bitterness could simply stem from the fact that my producing ability is two levels above horrid, and my lack of synesthesia provides a decently convenient scapegoat. But that’s beside the point.
