Monday, July 16, 2012

An Idea in the Distance


I’d love to take a trip around someone else’s mind. Did you ever wonder what it looks like in someone else’s head? What’s the process like? What colors flash around the ideas? Are the sounds gentle or raking or do they take imagined shape, like the ones in my head do? -- like when I am trying to arrange a piece of music I have written and I “see” the notes as a cascade of colors in my head, like rains layered over each other in different hues that resolve with each other when things are right…

People’s minds must be like snowflakes in their individuality -- infinitely varied fractals of processes and connections of ideas and feelings.

I’d just like to visit other minds…just to see…

Alas, I only know mine, at least from the inside. I try to know those of others from the outside as best I can.

A friend, who is a writer, once admonished me for not keeping a notebook. I have always wanted to be that guy who carried a well-weathered book of treasured seeds of greater things to come. I always wanted to be spotted maniacally jotting down the ideas that rush in upon me in unlikely places…but I’m not that person.

I told my friend that, the way I see it, if an idea is good enough for a story or for a song or for a blog post, I won’t forget it; and, if I do forget it, it will fight its way back to the top of the order if it was a really good one. The good ones will never be lost, I’ve always believed -- and I still do believe this.

That’s why, today, when I sat down to write, I had this nagging memory of a really good idea from last week -- something that, at the time, I knew I had to write about. But I can’t sink my teeth into it…can’t remember it completely.

In my mind, it morphs into a partial memory of the circumstances under which I the idea -- I have the impression of a scene before me: the backs of cars pulled into diagonal slots in front of an old-style storefront on a rain-wet street; a soft cushion at my back -- what I was looking at and feeling when I had the idea. It’s there like the ghost image after a camera flash. I must have been on the couch watching TV. There was rain either on the TV or outside and the idea was strong…something  big.

If it was that good, it will be back...

I’m not saying this as a tease, but as a way for you, if you are interested, to walk around my mind for a minute. This is the way it feels when an idea gets away from me; it’s close to the sensation when something you wanted to say slips out of your reach right before you try to say it.

This doesn't really help me to understand you, but it might help you to understand the kinds of things I'd like to understand about you.

13 comments:

  1. Sounds as if you are blessed to be a synesthete. How fascinating.

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    1. Elsa Louise --I just read up on synesthesia -- somehow I'd never heard the term (even though my wife just informed me that my sister wrote a blog post about her own synesthesia -- I must have missed it). I guess it is true -- seems to fit. Thanks for pointing out the phenomenon to me. It is, indeed, fascinating...

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  2. A trip around someone else's mind strikes me as one of the most terrifying propositions ever. It's scary enough inside my own, to be frank.

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    1. But, if everyone else's ind is just as frightening, then maybe we will feel a little better?

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  3. I should imagine that everyone’s own mind seems rather mundane to themselves. What I’m now curious about is this trait that you and your sister apparently share. Makes me think there’s a genetic component to it. How about pointing us toward her blog post, if it’s available?

    I remember years ago being assigned to learn a piano composition of J. Sibelius, which was probably when I first encountered word of the phenomenon. He, too, saw his music in colors. The idea stuck with me and when you mentioned it here, it returned to my mind (speaking of minds).

    Your dad is a musician, isn’t he? Maybe ask him if he experiences it as well. Wouldn’t that be something?

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    1. I should ask my dad, you're right. He is Curtis-trained and I know for a fact that his head works much differently than mine. He's much more of a nuts-and-bolts learner than I, but his harmonic concept is astoundingly unique. He has often talked about "seeing" the notes as if on a score page as he listens. I wonder...

      Here is the URL to my sister's piece. She talks more in terms of time and how she "sees" it. Interesting. http://spotcolors.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/winner-of-the-halloween-paper-chain-garland-and-thoughts-on-the-brain-synesthesia/

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  4. Funny. I've always wanted to be the one with the sketchbook constantly at my side, alas I've never been able to make that a habit. Similarly, I have ideas that pass through my mind and some fall by the wayside and pop up years later. As a visual artist, I think sometimes I'm not "ready" to see a particular idea through for one reason or another. As for synesthesia, I'd bet if I paid a little more attention to how my brain works while I'm creating, I'd notice more things like color. Although, because color is intrinsically intertwined with what I do, I probably take it for granted. The mind is fascinating. It would be amazing to record how a visual or musical idea comes to life from inside the mind. Part of what I love about visual art is how something forms in my mind and is vague and then I get to sit back and watch how it unfolds in the real world. It is not until I am officially complete that I am really sure of how it will turn out. And the goal to me is all about living up to that hazy idea that was kicking around in my head. But I digress. :)

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    1. Gina -- We work the same, apparently. In a way, I would hate to get too clear a picture of what goes on during my creative process. There's a lot of auto-pilot going on. Even when I set out to write a piece of music that sounds like "X," I tend to leave the inspiration behind.

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  5. I just read Gina’s post and found that quite interesting as well. If I see time and I’m not sure I do, but maybe (don’t think I’d ever thought about it until now), it would most likely be quite linear, as if on a timeline, an historical timeline, sort of like the number line in math. But that may be because I studied history for a good while, and we’re taught that subject in a rather linear manner. I want to give that whole concept a little thought now.

    I was thinking, trying to remember the piece I’d been assigned to work on, and I think rather than Sibelius it was Scriabin. And that gets kind of fascinating in its own right, because he too was thought to be a synesthete, but possibly a false one. A false one… My piano books are, unfortunately, in storage at present, so I can’t look up the composition. All I remember is that it was in a minor key and rather dolorous in sound, with big rolled chords that stretched my hands.

    And only just now, while watching the History Detectives on PBS, I learned (from Frank Zappa’s widow who was interviewed for a segment) that before Zappa wrote down his musical ideas, he would sketch them out, being as he was trained in the graphic arts. She said Zappa saw music like mobiles, as a visual image, in other words. He would visually draft what he heard in his mind’s ear before getting it down in musical notation. So he saw the music in his mind’s eye and heard it in his mind’s ear.

    Wow. Music like mobiles. Such a cool image, don’t you think?

    Which leads me to your dad. It will be interesting to learn what how he responds. I believe I recall one of your posts noted he was an arranger. It’s quite likely that he looks at the score of an orchestration or other arrangement for ensemble and can hear all the individual parts in his head, just by reading the score notation. I’ve always found that aspect of reading music utterly amazing. Not simply sight-reading a single line, as lots of folks can do that, but the entire score. Highly advanced harmonic understanding required for that ability.

    Delightful to ponder these things. Thank you for posting. Gets me thinking in new ways about a subject that is dear to me.

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  6. You're more than welcome. I'm glad it interests you so much. I did talk to my father, today, by the way. It seems he sees the sounds of the instruments in the orchestra in colors. Not sure if that counts...but I guess it does. He didn't mention any thing like my coalescing of colors, though...

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    1. [...deleted at 3:26 am and reposted to get it in the reply zone...think this time it worked.]

      So glad to hear your dad chime in with his response. Does that not seem extraordinary? He sees the sounds, as if they were visual elements rather than simply auditory ones? And in colors, no less.

      I saw the History Detectives episode today once more (it was repeated) and was able to jot down a bit more of what F. Zappa’s widow noted about him, namely, in re the mobile, he saw music as densities and progressions; the mobile represented the musical ideas floating in the air. And he would draw the music before notating, because he saw it as a dimensional thing.

      This seems related to what you and your father are experiencing, namely, a visual sensation of something that for the majority of folks is either auditory, kinesthetic, or a combination of both.

      Coda: As you stated initially, how interesting to take a stroll along with another person’s thoughts.

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    2. Really interesting. Though, not surprisingly, maybe, I find myself not wanting to explore this in myself much more. In others, sure. But there is something organic in the creative process that I use that I'm a little afraid to explore further...

      Fortunatley, one could get lost for a lifetime in the mind of Zappa, anyway. The dude played the bicycle, for cripes sake.

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