Synesthesia with musical notes. Do you feel it?

[TheHandOfStone]

wow thats so specific, and its implications are really interesting!
so does this mean you have perfect pitch then? and if you do, do you recognize it through color first or sound?

Kind of hard to explain really. I've been told by some that I have perfect pitch, while others will tell me that it is hereditary in nature. Which would make it unlikely that I do, because no one else in my family has this.

And I would say through color. My pitch identification abilities aren't nearly as accurate as many others with "perfect pitch;" while I can identify notes on a variety of instruments, my ear gets "confused" if a pitch winds up between notes. In that case the color might blend a bit, or else my ear will just assign it one color or the other and then get thrown off when it can't do the same for the rest of the pitches. So although it functions much in the same way as perfect pitch, I can't say for sure that what I have is.

 

[sixty]

I'm a visual/kenesthetic person and patterns as well as shapes stand out on the fretboard or I'll arrange scales in my head (As if done physically). Your case is interesting. The guitar is one of the most often self taught instruments. Play it how you do and turn it up as loud as you can!

 

[lucasreis]

I have something like that. Not sure if it really qualifies as "perfect pitch," but I've always seen colors in my "mind's eye" when playing or listening to music.

Incidentally, higher notes seem "brighter" and lower ones "darker," just as you described. I too see Bb as "brown," although it becomes something else entirely in the higher registers (probably the hardest color to describe).

As for the others:

A - Bluish white. I'd say the blue becomes a little more prominent in the lower registers.
B - Whitish. Not a pure white though; slightly more off-white.
C - Always red.
C#/Db - Always orange.
D - Always blue. Much darker in color than A.
D#/Eb - This note always seemed kind of brownish to me. Still easy to tell apart from Bb in its "brown" register as it is a bit brighter.
E - Yellow. Probably why I despise standard tuning.
F - The darkest of the three green notes.
F#/Gb - This note is actually pretty purpley.
G - The medium green.
G#/Ab - The lightest/brightest of the three greens.

Because I associate colors with notes I almost always prefer something in one key over the other if I hear it played in multiple keys. I tune DGCFAD because Amin becomes Gmin, which is hands down my favorite key. Sounds haunting to me.

Sorry for talking for so long about something I really can't "prove" or anything...just thought I'd share my experiences.

Cool stuff, it's very similar to what I feel. I tried to post an image with the not chart that I made but it didn't work. I'll try to post it again.

Image

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

I'd always had a very pictoral reaction not to specific notes but to timbres, phrasings and chords. For examples most heavy distorion I hear is a dark red, while overdrives are more of a golden yellow or orange. Really low piano notes always have this dark grey/black, hitting the bottom of the ocean feel. Chorus is adark blue, while flangers and phasers are light blue and an almost white blue, respectively.

Actually, I think it's Justin Chancellor from Tool. But I could be wrong.

It's Adam. When he plays music he gets both the usual audio response as well as a visula one. Then if he goes and sculpts or does other 'visual' types of art, he gets audio effects as well the standard visual ones.

I get a lot of wierd abstract images when I play and listen to musdic as well, mostly it's very vague in shape, usually some sort of 'blob' with a color and texture or a 'fog' with different gaseous 'formations' and is usually translucent, but unifomr in color. I notice that chorus and overdrive at the same time gives a sort of orange and blue twist/braid visula. Also sometimes the visual is just a colored 'fireball' moving. The visuals are pretty consistant with the sounds-I'll always get the same visual from the same sound. Also scales and intervals give different effects, like a bunch of whole tone stuff gives a very 'white' sound while tone clusters give some thing similar to tv static.

 

[lucasreis]

I'd always had a very pictoral reaction not to specific notes but to timbres, phrasings and chords. For examples most heavy distorion I hear is a dark red, while overdrives are more of a golden yellow or orange. Really low piano notes always have this dark grey/black, hitting the bottom of the ocean feel. Chorus is adark blue, while flangers and phasers are light blue and an almost white blue, respectively.



It's Adam. When he plays music he gets both the usual audio response as well as a visula one. Then if he goes and sculpts or does other 'visual' types of art, he gets audio effects as well the standard visual ones.

I get a lot of wierd abstract images when I play and listen to musdic as well, mostly it's very vague in shape, usually some sort of 'blob' with a color and texture or a 'fog' with different gaseous 'formations' and is usually translucent, but unifomr in color. I notice that chorus and overdrive at the same time gives a sort of orange and blue twist/braid visula. Also sometimes the visual is just a colored 'fireball' moving. The visuals are pretty consistant with the sounds-I'll always get the same visual from the same sound. Also scales and intervals give different effects, like a bunch of whole tone stuff gives a very 'white' sound while tone clusters give some thing similar to tv static.

I also get this kind of feeling.

But not really with colors and effects, but I feel that they're some sort of real texture. To me phasers and choruses are watery sounding while distortion resembles pure dirt, and it goes on and on.

 

[Esp Griffyn]

I always think its really interesting on the internet how as soon as someone mentions a disorder or syndrome, everyone has it. The best example is Obsessive compulsive type disorders, mention that on an internet forum and everyone seems to have it! Not saying that anyone is lying, but I think some people like to overdiagnose themselves.

The only example I get of this is when listening to Dimmu Borgir's "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant", which is probably to do with album art, I find the album to be very dark green. I can and often do assosciate colours with songs or albums, but its more how I feel the album affects my mood more than anything. I certainly wouldnt claim to be synthesic because I control the colours I apply to music myself, rather than being locked into a single colour for each note or key.

 

[rasse]

Im actually kind of jealous of you people who have synesthesia. Im thinking that it'd be really, really cool and be a great aid in composing and playing overall. I've also heard that some people have gotten it by just doing shitloads of LSD or smoking pot or some other hallucinogenic drug.

 

[ILdÐÆMcº³]

^It's not really that useful, just work on understanding the emotional impact music has on you and pitch recognition.

A really weird think that happens to me is that I hear voices in intervals, when I play certain notes together it sounds like people are talking or whispering words. I'm probably crazy but it's consistent to certain intervals and chords so there must be some reason for it.