Synaesthesia and the Choir Singer

I have long been a believer that relationships with music are very personal - play the same piece of music to a hundred people, and there will be a hundred subtly different experiences. This is something that is perhaps much closer to the forefront of my mind because of my synaesthesia. I experience a form, amongst others, that means that I when I hear sounds I also see them, and the idea that anyone else could be seeing the exact same shapes, textures and colours as me seems downright impossible.

In case you haven’t heard of synaesthesia before, a trip to Wikipedia will tell you it’s “a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.” Or put more simply, a crossing of the senses that to the synaesthete feels completely normal and natural - as unthinkable for us to live without as it is for the non-synaesthete to imagine living with it. That doesn’t mean to say that we don’t all share some synaesthetic tendencies - the concept of high and low notes is in itself a synaesthesia-style way of thinking.

So does this give me an advantage in the rehearsal room? There has been some suggestion that there could be a link between sound-to-colour synaesthesia and perfect pitch. Sadly this is something I don’t possess. For me, colour iis linked to the source of the sound (for instance a piano piece might be blue, while a trumpet-heavy jazz band will have earthy red tones). Saying that, there are times in choir rehearsals that I feel my synaesthesia gives me an advantage - as someone who cannot read music at all, I can only learn what I’m meant to be singing by listening and repeating back until it’s been committed to memory. Often when I’m not sure if what I’m singing is right, I can refer to the “visual” part of my experience as “back-up” - it often feels to me that I can learn what my part should “look” like more quickly than what it should sound like. Although, relying too heavily on this can actually make me more confused. The same note when sung can look completely different to me depending on volume; so it’s been known more than once that as I feel more confident that I know a section, and as a result begin to sing it louder. Only for it look different and to feel like I don’t know it at all!

Whether it advantages or disadvantages me, I’m still going to enjoy my synaesthesia and the personal perspective it gives me. And even if you don’t have synaesthesia, it’s still definitely worth thinking about your unique apparoach to music and the value it gives.