| “Pharrell knew how to give just the right “colorful beat-sound” to such diverse fellow-artists as Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Jay Zee ..adding the unique color-beat-sounds sometimes pushed these artists’ songs over to number one success” |
by Patricia Lynne Duffy
When I first learned that the film, ”Piece by Piece” (the “neuro-bio” of super-star -synesthete-songster, Pharrell Williams) would have special premier screenings in New York City (my city!), I knew I had to be there. I was super-excited that a major music- synesthete-talent — set the story of his skyrocket career in his own colorful synesthetic landscape (swirling colors, blocks of color, colors that seem to zoom to outer space).
At the screening near Lincoln Center, there I was, along with major members of Pharrell’s fan base, reps from music, film, and Legos industries (that’s right Legos). As we learn in the film, Pharrell pitched director Morgan Neville the idea of telling his story using colorful Legos pieces – which to me, as a synesthete-viewer, who inwardly inhabits colorful 3-D spaces – seemed just right.
One of the opening film scenes shows Pharrell as a very young ‘Lego-boy’ in front of the family stereo, “mesmerized” by all the colors and shapes flowing from its speaker. Like most synesthetes, Pharrell didn’t know there was anything unusual about his colored music visions. As he narrates in the film, ”I just thought that all Black kids – we all stared into the speaker …I was seeing colors”.
Immersed as he is in his colorful inner world, Pharrell tells us he lived a lot in “dreamland” and was deemed “an odd child” by many of those around him. The description hurt him until he realized this “oddness” was also his superpower and ticket to the music world’s lofty heights.
Pharrell’s beloved grandmother notices her grandson’s passion and determination to make music. She watches him rig up his own drum set with her baking tools: a cake mixer and whisk become his drum sticks. Moved by this, she buys Pharrell a snare drum and sticks and later encourages him to “take up music” at school. It’s in his band class that the budding musician meets a kindred spirit—Chad Hugo, who “gets” the music-color thing as he experiences it too.
Chad and Pharrell “bond over” their music-color synesthesia—and become inseparable friends, playing music in every spare moment and forming their music group, “The Neptunes”. The Neptunes win a local talent contest held by music producer Teddy Reilly – and thus begins Pharrell’s journey to musical super stardom.
Pharrell credits his early experience informally making music with Chad and other talented friends at the ”Atlantis Houses” at Virginia Beach. Virginia where Pharell grew up. Honing his gift for later collaboration with top musicians in the pop and hip-hop field.
Pharrell knew how to give just the right “colorful beat” and sound to such diverse fellow-artists as Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Jay Zee ..adding the unique color-beat-sounds sometimes pushed these artists’ songs over to number one success.
It’s striking to me how – despite our different ages and backgrounds – (I’m old enough to be Pharrell’s Mom) – I feel so connected to Pharrell’s color visions. And while Pharrell grew up in public housing in Virginia Beach, I grew up in what my own Mom referred to as the “Archie Bunker houses” in Queens, New York. Though his visions are prompted by music, mine by words. The experience of color-sound-synesthesia is found throughout the world, with about two percent of the populations experiencing it.
The screening audience at the ‘near-Lincoln Center’ cinema loved the film, and audience members were not shy about vocalizing their appreciation – with laughs, claps, whistles (all those sounds, for me, just adding even more syn colors and shapes to this syn movie experience).
I could tell you more, but do not want to get in the way of your own discovery of the film – and maybe your own inner landscape too.
Start here with the color-drenched sound landscape of the Piece by Piece trailer:
and how it all led up to singing “Happy”!
Patricia Lynne Duffy is the author of the now classic, Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens:
how synesthetes color their worlds, the first book by a synesthete about synesthesia. An
audio version of the book with research updates, music by synesthete-composers, and
an “Afterword” is recently out. Available from Audible She also contributed a chapter,
“Synesthesia and Literature” to the Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia. See her
website, bluecats.info