Quick fun fact. Did you know that musicians (besides writers and artists) are more likely to have a neurological condition called synesthesia? Perhaps you probably don’t even know some of your favorite musicians have it. There’s a handful of famous musicians who have it, including Billy Joel, Pharrell Williams, and Billie Eilish (who you probably know of).
I have a handful of famous musicians who experience synesthesia, and find the connection between synesthesia and music quite fascinating (one of the reasons being I have synesthesia myself, and I’m also just really fascinated by neurological shit), which is why I figured I’d write this article. As you read, you’ll get to learn about synesthesia itself, as well as my favorite musicians who happen to have it.
So, what the hell is synesthesia?
To summarize, synesthesia is a neurological condition that involves one thing stimulating multiple senses, when that thing is supposed to stimulate one sense. An example includes “seeing” colors and shapes when you listen to music, or even “tasting” a certain flavor when listening to a song. Synesthetes (people with synesthesia) may even associate certain letters and months with their own kinds of personalities (an example of this personification type of synesthesia would be someone considering the letter A grumpy), and some synesthetes may listen to an album and say it sounds like a rainy day in England (this is what the album English Settlement by XTC sounds like to me). Some synesthetes are even able to hear silent films and/or pictures. Have you ever saw someone get hurt and felt that same sensation before? That’s an example of synesthesia as well.
Researchers are still unsure about how common synesthesia exactly is, with a study from 2006 suggesting that 2–4% of the population experiences it.
Different types of synesthesia
There’s a multitude of different types of synesthesia, too many for me to even list. Below is a list of some of the different forms of synesthesia with examples and explanations of them.
- Chromesthesia: Sounds are associated with colors and shapes (Listening to a song and visualizing certain colors in your mind’s eye such as purple and/or red, strumming a guitar chord and associating it with the color green, listening to a song and visualizing swirly patterns in your mind’s eye)
- Grapheme-color synesthesia: Associating letters and/or numbers with colors (Seeing the number 3 as purple, seeing the letter A as red, seeing the word “optimism” as a golden yellow)
- Auditory-tactile synesthesia: Feeling physical sensations in response to hearing a sound (Feeling like your skin is being touched when hearing a specific word, feeling a sensation like a comforting hug when listening to a song)
- Spatial-sequence synesthesia: Associating numbers and/or dates with certain locations in space (A certain number or year being experienced as a point either far or close)
- Number-form synesthesia: Picturing a mental map every time a number is seen or thought of (Would include an example for this one, but it’s kind of hard to explain)
- Mirror-touch synesthesia: Feeling the same physical sensation you see someone experiencing (Feeling the sensation of being touched when you see someone being touched, feeling pain when someone is being hurt)
For the rest of the article, you’re going to get to learn about my favorite musicians who happen to have synesthesia.
Andy Partridge
“And I’ve got one, two, three, four, five senses working overtime…” Those lyrics sound familiar to you? If not, they’re the lyrics to Senses Working Overtime, a popular song by the criminally underrated band XTC. The songwriter’s Andy Partridge, who is a synesthete. Looking at the lyrics to some songs Andy has written, it can be seen how Andy’s synesthesia plays a role in his songwriting. In the This Is Pop documentary, Andy demonstrates how his synesthesia influences his songwriting by strumming a chord on the guitar he’s never played before, proceeding to say it sounds like a muddy puddle, and then coming up with a little ditty involving a muddy puddle. According to an article I’ve recently found, Andy also associates chords with certain colors. For example, A is blue, while A6 is more turquoise.
Marina Diamandis
Welsh singer-songwriter Marina Diamandis also experiences synesthesia. For her, her synesthesia primarily involves color association, and she usually associates musical notes and days of the week with different colors. Sometimes, though, she’ll smell different scents out of the blue.
Andy Summers
Andy Summers, best known as the guitarist for the Police, experiences both mirror-touch and spatial-sequence synesthesia. He sees time as a hologram around him, instead of having a mental image of a calendar or map. There have also been instances where he’s felt the same physical sensations someone has felt, for example, he has felt the same pain of others.
References
- https://www.healthline.com/health/synesthesia
- https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/229-what-the-hell-is-synesthesia-and-why-does-every-musician-seem-to-have-it/
- https://www.musicianwave.com/synesthesia-in-music/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3596158/
- https://synesthesia.com/blog/types-of-synesthesia/
- https://tidal.com/magazine/article/inside-synesthesia/1-72048
- https://www.rookiemag.com/2015/02/marina-and-the-diamonds/
- https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/notes-on-synaesthesia-how-seeing-music-changes-everything-20170619-gwu2nn.html
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sensorium/201906/andy-summers-synesthete
