Kaleidoscope of Sound

Autumn to me is a symphony.

I find it strange that some people don't see colors with sounds, or sounds with colors. I hate wearing red, orange, or yellow because it annoys my ears. Similarly, some music makes my eyes hurt.

Seeing the American flag makes me hear chaos. The red and white stripes alternate: screams and bombs, then silence, or a trill of noise that resembles a machine gun. The blue field is a soothing rustle like a brook or leaves in the forest, upon which five-pointed grenades explode. Or again, white is sometimes silence, not good silence, but death silence, in which case those stars are dead breve rests. If I look at the flag quickly, particularly if it is hanging vertical, I hear a battle. I doubt the Founding Fathers took that into consideration.

Christmas red and green is both annoying and soothing. Much like the holiday, I suppose. It is a clattering battle, like mothers fighting one another over the last toy in a store, and green choir boys singing church hymns.

Through high school, I wore black because it was a droning sound, the closest to silence I could get. White was sometimes silent, sometimes the loudest, like an Ace in a deck of cards. I accented my dark ensemble with purple or blue, because it was soft enough to speak while not screaming.

Have you ever told someone they were wearing a "loud shirt"? That can be literal to me.
But the reverse can also be true. Sounds can evoke colors.

Music is a kaleidoscope of sound. When I was a child, I always wanted to play piccolo (long story why). When I learned flute and finally got my chance to be first-chair and thus the piccolo player, I couldn't stand the noisy stick. It was too bright! It was the brightest lemon yellow, sometimes a neon pink. Even the flute was becoming too bright. I switched to low brass. The music of the low instruments is made of shades of blue and purple. I prefer my world in those colors. I tried trumpet, and that was bright. French horn is the highest I can handle now. It's khaki, although it can range to green and into brown.

Not just the timbre of the instrument, but the notes themselves can affect the color. My trombone can be indigo, but it can also become lemon yellow, even cherry red if I'm playing particularly loud. Flutes can drift along in a greenish-blue sea, but rarely do they get to purple. Percussion are like white dots that brighten an otherwise monochrome tapestry. I have to be careful when playing in band because I can get lost in the visual aspect of the song.

It's a neurological condition called synesthesia. It's not pathological, I'm not crazy (really!) In fact, I love it this way. I hear music everywhere. I see colors when I hear sounds. Who needs drugs!

I don't literally "see" every single sound or "hear" every color, but... does it make sense to say I "feel" them? I know, I know, now I'm mixing three sensory experiences at once. "Impressions" might be a better word. I currently hear a bird singing out my window. It sings low, green, then goes into a high red and yellow trill, then warbles again in the green hues. Yet I don't see those colors on my computer screen as I type this. They're in my head, not in my eyes.

Perhaps because I can control it to some extent. I think being in the school band helped me to learn when to let my brain see the sounds, and when to keep it to just impressions. Some songs are still "orangish-red with white clashes" while others are "lavender with teal waves." Listening to ambient music is best for leaning back, closing my eyes, and allowing the colors to ripple on the canvas of my mind. In those moments, yes, I do see colors because I allow myself to. I have a hard time imagining the world any other way.

Now the trees are changing color. The gentle green melody is giving a triumphant fanfare, loud, boisterous, glorious, before the dirge of grayish-white winter sweeps in and murmurs like a crowd in a church. Taking a long walk, I think, "Who needs an iPod!" I hear plenty of songs around me. Each yellow, orange, and red leaf is a player in this symphony that makes up Nature.

Music adds color to my world. Colors sing to me.