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The Colors

by Chris Beckstrom

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1.
Black 01:50
2.
3.
Blue 01:40
4.
White 02:12
5.
Pink 01:04
6.
Brown 02:16
7.
Red 03:33
8.
Green 02:08

about

I have synesthesia, a neurological condition where senses get mixed up. In my case, all sensory input to my brain (sound, touch, taste, smell) manifests itself in shapes and colors– in addition to the "normal" responses. When I hear music (or any sound for that matter) I see colors, shapes, and textures projected onto the source of the sound.

Everything I do in music is informed by my synesthesia; I play instruments by color, I read music by color, I compose, record, produce, mix, and master by color.

This short album was an exercise of sorts. The goal was to create songs or tracks that used only one color of sound. In other words, make a song with all the "brown" sounds, make one with all the "white" sounds, and so on.

I found this to be quite difficult! I usually make music by combining colors to create nice color combinations. In this case, my self-imposed restriction was to keep things monochrome. The other difficulty was a lack of diversity in certain colors; I could only think of a single sound that is pink (saw waves), and for the life of me couldn't think of any purple sounds.

For me, listening to these tracks in headphones is a lot like looking at sculptures. I considered calling the album "Sound Sculptures," but that sounds ridiculously pretentious to me.

I hope you enjoy my listening and/or watching my "sound sculptures."

I'm also building a website about my synesthesia– in some ways it's the liner notes to this album:
cbfishes.com/syn/types.php

Wikipedia entry about synesthesia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

credits

released February 12, 2014

Chris Beckstrom - synthesizers, saxophones, bass clarinet, snare drum, pandeiro, organ, Rhodes, samplers

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Chris Beckstrom Grand Rapids, Michigan

Creative electronic music from the Michigan countryside.

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