Christian Gratz is a talented multi-instrumentalist and composer from Olyphant Pennsylvania. But this is not what makes him unique. Gratz was born with a rare condition called Synesthesia/Chromasthesia, which is clinically defined as the meshing of two senses. I wanted to find out how Gratz got turned on to music that was popular before his time and how his condition affects his ability to create/play music.

In the late ’70s/early ’80s, the only music that Gratz was exposed to was what he could pick up on the radio. One station he listened to played Top 40 tunes while the other played Easy Listening. Says Gratz, “I’ve always been enchanted with music because I have this thing called Synesthesia which means I see colors when I hear music. Each note has a different color.” When he was young, he thought everyone had this experience while listening to music. “I couldn’t understand why nobody else was as excited about music as I was. To me, because I have [Synesthesia] music became real, it became concrete because I see the effects of music on my brain.”

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