But I Know One Thing
December 01, 2009
Scene: Car. Interior. Jason runs into store for essentials (wine, more wine) while Amy, Noah and Ezra wait in the car. It's a nice night, so he cuts the engine. The iPod goes silent.
Noah: No! No! I want the blue song! I need the blue song!
Amy, who less than like, 24 hours earlier wrote about this very quirk, complete with the words "songs are rarely blue" because OF COURSE, quickly turns the car back on. "Bust A Move," as sung by the cast of Glee, starts up again.
Noah: No! That's the orange song. I want the BLUE song.
Amy starts going back through shuffled songs they've listened to already.
Noah: NOT THE RED SONG! I need the blue song, Mommy!
Amy starts playing random songs that he might have heard recently, then a bunch of his favorites. Four or five yellow songs, two pink and another orange song are all emphatically rejected.
Noah; BLUE SONG. BLUE!
Amy: I don't know the blue song, Noah. I..I don't hear songs the way you do.
Oh awesome, and now he's crying.
Amy: I don't see colors for songs, baby. That's a really special Noah thing. Can you sing it for me?
Noah snuffles and starts humming a familiar tune...that Amy still cannot quite place. Shit.
Jason returns to a scene of full-on hysterics. Noah continues to plead for his blue song. Amy is about to chuck the stupid iPod out the window.
Jason: What does the blue song sound like, buddy?
Noah hums it again. Amy suspects Vampire Weekend. Amy is wrong. Jason is like, DUDE. Amy looks at him like, I KNOW RIGHT?
Jason: What does the blue song look like?
Noah: Fireworks. Blue ones.
Amy gives up, hits shuffle, hopes for a miracle out of the 1,328 or whatever songs. "Say Hey (I Love You)" starts up, and Noah stops crying. He looks out the window and starts shaking his head to the beat.
Jason: Is this the blue song?
Noah: No. It's green. It's okay though.
Can I just say I love that you chose the green player for the song? :-)
On the other hand, the sheer frustration experienced by everyone except Ezra in this story is uncomfortably familiar. I'm sorry. And I'm so glad "Say Hey" was there to save the day.
Have you ever asked a musician about the classifications of songs? We talked about this a bit at my house the other night & my son suspects that it has something to do with the scale & time used...something only a musician like him would catch on to. Like, all of Jack Johnsons songs were somethingorotherItotallydidn'tunderstand.
I dance around the living room to that song with my kid. He likes it a lot too.
First? First!
I love this song, it was my pregnancy song and I *think* my one-year-old remembers it from the womb. That and the Barack obama one...
Noah has good taste!
Oh, wow. See it took me so long to write that comment I lost my first! Boo.
In case you didn't already know, the fancy name for this is Synaesthesia.
http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/synaesthesia_smelling_a_sound_or_hearing_a_color
Noah is a saint. :) I love that he knows what he wants but in the end is willing to do the kid equivelant of rolling his eyes and shaking his head and saying, "ok, close enough". Perhaps this prepares him for life as a high school drama teacher. :)
I'm so ridiculously fascinated by this. I would love to hear more from Noah about why the songs are the colors they are. Can you have maybe a playlist with the color and what they look like and why? I think that might be like crack for me. I (very) briefly (like a day or two) was a Music Therapy major; I kick myself often for changing majors. This seems like such a gift (I would even use gift instead of quirk, as quirk can have negative associations).
Yeah, that song does sound kind of green to me. What a genius boy you have!
Have you noticed any similarities between the songs that Noah identifies as one particular color?
I wonder how much Noah, intuitively knows about color theory. Like for instance that to get green you combine blue and yellow. I'm wondering if he was satisfied by this song because it has some blue in it?
I have very mild synethesia and I WISH it was of the color variety. Instead mine seems to be related to dates, times, and objects, and sensations. For instance there's a woman in one of my classes who IS a Ford Focus and I have a yellow mechanical pencil which is Christmas when I was 6 years old. I haven't ever been able to explain why I associate things the way I do, it just happens. Sometimes it's mysterious and perplexing and sometimes it's magical.
I think that is an amazing gift that your precious boy has! If only we could see it too...it sounds beautiful!
I freakin' love that kid. Seriously.
I guess I like green songs too! Bless him, I bet Noah's world is so bright and colourful! Such a cool little guy!
i think that is awesome and really very special.
also, do people on the internet still really go First! I'm first! Because note to those people: stop it, you're embarrassing yourself. A lot.
What a beautiful way for Noah to experience the world!
You MUST download Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." Even if it's not THE blue song, it is indisputably a blue song. :)
I see color-coded playlists in your future...
I teared up at the way you responded to him--"that's a very special Noah thing"--what a great way to make that "quirk" feel like the amazing gift it truly is.
Noah is so amazing
Thank you for the song!
And very much agree with above that you could make a playlist and share it. I personally would love to learn more about all this, and maybe even try to find new songs for Noah. Though I feel this song as yellow-going-on-orange (not synaesthesia, afaik), even before realizing the video was filmed in Brazil, which has always been a yellow country for me :p
I second the color coded playlists so that you have an arsenal of songs for each color request!
So amazing that he sees it as blue fireworks. Wow.
I think it's time to set up color categories on the iPod!
He's an adorable little one. Love reading about your son!
Extraordinary! You need to start teaching Noah the names of songs. Sorry - duh. Also, I would love it if you posted a list of music that Noah enjoys and their colors. I am a 47 year old mom of a 5 year old girl. I wish i had more current tastes...
Lesson Learned: Never Ever play the ipod on Shuffle.
Even better - create a playlist for each color.
Wendy - In case you haven't read it,the post I link to in the third paragraph lists the song/color classifications we've noted so far. I thought I was getting the hang of what type of song is what color...but then this was the first time he'd ever called a song green and probably only the second time he called one blue, which is why I had NO IDEA what type of song he was asking for.
I'm waiting for Amazon to deliver a couple books on synethesia that readers recommended. In the meantime I just keep making mental notes of the colors he mentions and trying to make it something fun and not a distraction/frustration, which admittedly it is for him a lot of the time.
I had it easier (no ipod back then, just a CD player) but I remember the whole panicked "no mommy, that's the wrong color!" as I skipped through the songs.
I'll have to show him this post tonight after he comes home from school, it will make him grin.
To keep track of the colors, in iTunes, you can put the color of the song in the "Comments" section of each track and sort by that. You'd still have to make playlists to sort the different colors on your iPod, but that way you wouldn't have to worry about deleting a playlist and having a crisis.
My 15 month old heard the song while we were out and about a couple months ago and started dancing right away. Took me forever to find out the name of the song based on just a snippet I recorded with my phone. :)
I have sooooo been there. Wait until Ezra starts to voice his opinion on what song to listen to and it is a different one than Noah wants. Many tears have been shed over the song Dr. Worm. Love the Vampire Weekend reference.
My lord I was tired after reading this story. You all must be exhausted!!!
Someone's comment up there totally gave me an idea: what about building playlists for Noah based on color? That would cut down on frustration for both of you when he's requesting a particular color and you have no earthly idea what he's talking about, plus it might be interesting for you to see if it helps pinpoint similarities between songs of the same color.
There was a Broadway show in 2001, based on drum and bugle corps field shows, called Blast! that grouped music into different color themes. (Won a Tony and Emmy award, too.) It was a neat presentation... though if Noah disagreed with the selection of colors, it might not be as much fun for him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast!_(musical)
What a neat kid. Seriously. He amazes me with just how amazing he is.
I guess my daughter could be the same only that she tends to group songs by Princess. (Aren't you glad you escaped THAT trend?)
You know, ever since you wrote about synthesthesia, I've been seeing it mentioned almost everywhere I look!
I even had a conversation with my dad over Thanksgiving break when he mentioned it and I surprised him by telling him I had a pretty decent case back in childhood.
my daughter loves that song also! (and so do i)
Good taste Noah. You're going to be such a lady's man.
I LOVE the green song.
Lub! I lub that boy!
Hugs for the endlessly sweet and fascinating Noah!
PS: There must be an Ez Thanksgiving story waiting to be told ... :)
::: poke, poke, poke :::
xoxoxo
I have to agree with those who mentioned maybe discussing music theory with a musician. I'm sure you have quite a few readers who could hook you up with someone in the know about this kind of thing. I think it's fascinating, but I can see where it's also frustrating for you all.
Huh, I think Michael is color blind. Not sure how this is related to this post, but this post just reminded me me I need to make an appointment to get him tested for that.
Noah is so precious! Thank you for sharing stories about him!
Do you know the book A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass? I had never heard of synethesia until I read your former post. Then I saw this book (written for 5th - 8th graders...a while off for Noah, admittedly) at my daughter's school book fair. Thanks for teaching me about something I was unfamiliar with.
I'm joining the color coded playlist wagon. Can you print your playlists and color the songs as Noah listens to them?
I love that song (and the green player)! I'm kind of wondering if the blue song wasn't the song that was playing when the ipod got shut off, which is what triggered the fit in the first place but then I went back and re-read the beginning of your post and realized that nope. It was an orange song. It must be crazy making and at the same time totally fascinating to learn this particular way of "seeing" music as you go.
Someone has probably already said this, but it reminds me of the character Emma from Heroes. What a cool and unique way to see/hear things!
I love this. I'm sure it's frustrating as all get out but it also seems like a gift. Noah has great taste (HA! Synthesthesia joke.) in music. Can I borrow him? My iPod suckith.
I love your blog, and think that each entry is its own special gem, but the ones about Noah & his colors for music are fascinating, and you write with such reverence for his unique abilities. Cannot wait to hear more. I'm also inspired to finally listen to "Born on a Blue Day" which I downloaded eons ago.
I love the green song! I never knew the title for that one, but I hear it everywhere I go. Sounds green to me.
Man, I cannot wait to see what amazing things that kid does!
Add me to the group who would love to see a color-coded playlist posted for those of us who are always on the hunt for new tunes. Great song!