By Hank
In the first place, it’s amazing we have the ability and grasp of senses. Be able to have emotion. To be able to laugh. To be able to cry. To being able to experience food, love, anger, humor, and my favorite, music. Humans naturally carry a handful of senses, humans for ages have examined and identified our senses, and now in the 21st century, we are identifying what some people may call a talent, skill, or special condition.
This is known as synesthesia, which according to Wikipedia is a neurological phenomenon, in which stimulation of one sensory leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory. Basically, our senses that we have mix with other ones to perform as one.
For example, the film ratatouille by Pixar has a character that is obsessed with food and his sense of great taste. From him eating food, his brain gives him an actual vision and sees colors and textures just by eating specific food that inspires the vision.
There are different types of synesthesia: some mix with touch and taste, smell and memory or touch and emotion.
My favorite, and I think most strong form of synesthesia is Chromesthesia, which is the sense of sound influencing vision and/or emotion. I’ve been a musician almost my entire life, which really started when my dad would show me films with soundtrack. I started playing trombone, then bass, then guitar, and now I’ve been teaching myself piano for the last year. It is by far my favorite instrument, mainly for the reason that you can put the most into your music through playing it on a piano, where you can play large, spectacular chords and include melody and chord progression, with ease.
Music production was introduced to me around the age where I think I really started feeling like I was embracing Chromesthesia. From listening to all kinds of music that projected all kinds of vast emotions, I started making up film scenes as I heard a new score or piece of music in just one hearing.
I started using midi keyboard and computer software to produce music of all kinds, from electronic to cinematic ensemble, to rap instrumentals. I’ve recorded many bands under the influence of wanting to create a certain sound with the tools given to me, tools being guitar players and drummers and especially singers/rappers.
I think this form of synestesia is the most common, especially when there is so much superb and almost always near-perfect production of music found around the world. The culture found right now in all music is to be as innovative and authentic as possible. The consequence is that musicians and music listeners are now in a position where almost all produced music is found to give off emotion with innovative sound and form, and with this decade bringing some of the most innovative and authentic sounding music there has ever been.
From this, I bet many music listeners are growing more chromesteigic album after album and artist after artist, pleased even more, day by day.