Listening in living colour: My life as a music loving synesthete

By Juan Zambrano

I’ve always loved music. The combination of melody, rhythm and sometimes lyrics comforts me in a way few things can. The structure and intricacies of a song keep me listening but it’s a song’s colours that first hook me in.

I’ve been hearing music in colour forever. I couldn’t explain it for a long time. A song comes on and one or more colours pop up in my mind. Let It Be is blue, Heroes is black and Purple Rain is green, to name a few.

I never felt I needed to share what I saw with anyone. Reason being, either everyone else could do it or people would just take it as one of my eccentricities. I was wrong on both fronts.

My hidden ability

Synesthesia entered the conversation while I was playing video games in my brother’s room, during Christmas break. A character in the game described it as what happened when several senses are stimulated amid stimulating a single sense. The example they used, seeing music as colour.

“I can do that,” I said out loud. The first time I ever admitted to my hidden ability. Excitement rushed through me as the words left my lips. I hadn’t imagined it after all. Hearing colour was possible. Science actually backed up one of my many eccentricities. I couldn’t believe it.

My brother looked at me with surprise. He played a few songs and asked me what colours I saw. I can’t remember the songs, but I remember seeing brown and yellow when he played them. My brother rushed to tell my parents, even wheeling me over to confirm it. The news that her music addict of a son could see colours when he indulged his addiction naturally worried my mom. She came into my brother’s room a while later and I laid down the details as best I could.

My abilities only extend to melody and vocals. Drums, rhythm and percussion evoke no colours. A change in the colour I see means a song has changed key. I’m also more likely to enjoy songs I see as blue, as it’s my favourite colour. That might be part of why I love Tiny Dancer so much.

What is synesthesia? 

I shared these details as my mom and brother researched. We spent the next hour parsing between the internet and my anecdotes to get a clearer picture of synesthesia. The results were quite interesting.

Synesthesia is found in four percent of the population and comes in many forms. I have Chromesthesia or sound to colour synesthesia. The most common form of synesthesia. Synesthesia is passed down genetically and often develops from birth or a young age. People who have synesthesia are called synesthetes.

Synesthetes experience synesthesia in one of two ways. I see the colours of music in my mind, meaning I have associative synesthesia. Some people see these colours or shapes right in front of them. Scientists call this projective synesthesia.

People with chromesthesia consistently associate a colour or series of colours but the colour itself is unique to each person. A song like Good Vibrations may be orange is orange, green and blue to me. It may be blue, green and red for another person with chromesthesia.

Many of us see our synesthesia as a gift or a sixth sense. It gives me a deeper connection with an art form I’m deeply passionate about and further makes my listening experience unique to me.

I still have a lot to learn about synesthesia but it’s a rabbit hole I’m happy to go down.  I’ve begun drawing synesthesia charts to keep track of all the colours I see, when I listen to the many albums I own. It’s a fun and important step to unlocking the secrets of my brain.

My name is Juan Zambrano and I’m a synesthete. Saying that out loud would’ve felt strange ten years ago, when I thought my gift was an eccentricity.  But it’s exciting to know I’m not alone in letting music colour my world.

Juan Zambrano has been writing for Monkeybiz.ca since February 2020, writing Song of The Week reviews and on a variety of topics for the site. Juan is a second-year Journalism student at Mohawk College, with a passion for writing, music and telling stories. Outside of Monkeybiz, Juan runs Juan’s Music Zone which is a website dedicated to all things music.

(Images by Hans Braxmeier and by ArtTower from Pixabay)