Los Doggies

Did you know some crazy folks out there have actually seen Music? They’re called synesthetes and often experience what is known as “colored hearing,” or “Sound → Color Synesthesia.” What do these synesthetes say that Music looks like? Well, no two synesthetes ever agree on tone (especially the musicians), but mostly it looks exactly how you’d expect music to look: Colored lights, flashes, and bangs. Pulsations aflicker. A ferocious phantasmagoria of light and sound blowing through the mind’s eye. Honey combs, spiderwebs, tunnels, cones, spirals. Form constants. “Something like fireworks.”

Here’s an example. The key of D Major has always struck me as a green sort of fellow. There’s also some strong yellowness inside his heart. And the whole thing kinda explodes, like a firework. Click on the chord below for a simulation of synesthetic phenomena.

Kaboom! Music is so violent and colorful. The sounds you hear are little explosions, like in the quantum world where everything is exploding all the time. They attack, sustain, decay, and finally release, but not without a bang. Artistic noise—that is to say Music—is like a controlled demolition, or a fireworks display. Ya know, the kind of explosions people like, as opposed to bombs and volcanoes.

So it would seem that Music absorbs much of the violence of the human race. Like a touretter’s drum circle, like the beating of a gorilla’s chest, crazy aggressive energy can be channeled into Music. As background, Music can hypnotize us, lock us in step with its beat, sooth our savage hearts, and entrain our minds along a peaceful path into sleep, sex, or sociability. As foreground, Music spars with us, hijacking our thought trains with its melodies, reaching directly into our cockles like an odor, shredding upon our heartstrings like Yngwie Malmsteen.

What does all this interplay of light and sound tell us? Is this Life Reality? No. Colors and sounds are the same. They’re both waves that are sensed in two unique ways, due to both cultural nurturing and natural brain development. Color is an electromagnetic wave; sound is pneumatic. A 60 cycle wave sounds like the Flat B hum of a refrigerator, guitar amp, or anything else plugged into the Grid. A 60 cycle wave of light is invisible. Now take the 7 Classical Colors (ROYGBIV) and transpose them down 40 Octaves into the audible spectrum of sound. Each Color falls into the region of the 7 Classical Notes (GABCDEF).

 A Supersynesthete would be the rare individual who sees the correct colors while listening to the analogous tones. For more on synesthesia and music, check this out.

So there you have it! Light. Sound. Explosions. Synaesthesia is the Sixth Sense. Music is the Fifth Force. Play for peace.