paul h Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 I have something similar. I hear all the notes I play as wrong and see scowling faces and hands clamped over ears. Weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil.i.stein Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 [quote name='paul h' post='748842' date='Feb 17 2010, 07:38 PM']I have something similar. I hear all the notes I play as wrong and see scowling faces and hands clamped over ears. Weird.[/quote] no, that's sinagainstbassia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wil Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 I'm a fan of the brown note, myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil.i.stein Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 [quote name='Wil' post='748863' date='Feb 17 2010, 07:59 PM']I'm a fan of the brown note, myself.[/quote] i.m a fan of brownout, myself. hi wil, you might like this lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wil Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 [quote name='phil.i.stein' post='748881' date='Feb 17 2010, 08:13 PM']i.m a fan of brownout, myself. hi wil, you might like this lot.[/quote] It's good, but I'm sorry to say it didn't make me sh*t myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil.i.stein Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 [quote name='Wil' post='748883' date='Feb 17 2010, 08:17 PM']It's good, but I'm sorry to say it didn't make me sh*t myself.[/quote] glad to hear it your reply nearly made me piss myself, guess i'm getting too old.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil.i.stein Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 [quote name='arthurhenry' post='748297' date='Feb 17 2010, 12:23 PM']Do you see notes as colours? I've spoken to other musicians who do and some who don't have a clue what I'm on about! For me: E is yellow F Grey F# Sandy G Green G# Greeny turquoise A Browny red A# Dark grey B Blue C Green C# Bluey turquoise D Red D# ?[/quote] hi arthurhenry, i find this whole subject fascinating. music tweakes different things in different brains. how do you 'view' music ? can you tell me what you 'see' when you hear this ? ..just out of interest ? no rorschach test or 'owt !! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mykesbass Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 Never understood it, but love the theory that Palladio designed rooms to have harmonic proportions. Could certainly feel it in some of his buildings but could never really explain it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil.i.stein Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 colour = tuned frequency ? shades of colour = fine-tuned frequency ? all interesting. musical instruments/scales are part of language/speech/ are part of art/perception. all life's a perspective of a perspective of... this is science. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul h Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 Thank god you don't see any purple. I hate purple. If E was purple I would be in real trouble. I would never play it. And it's the only note I know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil.i.stein Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 [quote name='paul h' post='748929' date='Feb 17 2010, 08:55 PM']Thank god you don't see any purple. I hate purple. If E was purple I would be in real trouble. I would never play it. And it's the only note I know.[/quote] Em is great. EMaj is a tosser. unless he is held in check by Em Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil.i.stein Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 [quote name='phil.i.stein' post='748927' date='Feb 17 2010, 08:52 PM']colour = tuned frequency ? shades of colour = fine-tuned frequency ? all interesting. musical instruments/scales are part of language/speech/ are part of art/perception. all life's a perspective of a perspective of... this is science.[/quote] i'm going to bed soon. i want your homework on my desk in the morning. g'night. x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 the keys player in my post rock band has synaesthesia... it's absolutely fascinating. he sees modes as colours, as well as numbers (he's doing maths at uni). which is really bloody useful! the best thing is how easily he finds it to take on a style. when we first jammed, he was playing all of this crazy rachmaninoff style stuff. i recommended he listen to "ludovico einaudi", and next week he came back and sounded like einaudi. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BottomEndian Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 [quote name='Tech' post='749026' date='Feb 17 2010, 10:11 PM']i recommended he listen to "ludovico einaudi"[/quote] I never thought I'd see those words written. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 When I'm at work I have a very strong visual sense that permeates a lot of things that I think about. Like, a lot of my job involves managing movement and activities of people both inside and outside buildings and complicated interactions between traffic, pedestrians, cyclists, buses, deliveries while maintaining safety and convenience for everyone as far as possible. Thinking of flow related visual analogies, such as oxygen exchange in the lining of the lungs, water run off, drainage and outflow across a landscape and other things often helps simplify things. I tend to think of music in the same way, like for example if I'm talking about being in front or behind the beat I tend to think about a spinning wooden wheel mounted on a base with a mark on its spinning circumference that matches a static pointer attached to the base. When the beat is in front, I imagine playing a note when the mark has yet to pass the pointer, likewise the opposite when the mark has passed the pointer. So long as I play when the mark is in the same location then its consistent. (Then there's a coloured zone for 'the pocket' which represents how far in front or behind I could potentially play without losing the groove.) If I'm imagining a linear experience (as listening to music often is) I find myself in a tunnel moving through various sized rooms...its probably the presence of space within the arrangement of the music that I'm relating to most strongly I guess. Anyways, this visual analogy thing isn't as special as synasthesia but I find how the brain deals with abstract concepts and ideas interesting. I've heard of some synaesthetes who have developed their abilities to enhance memorisation to remarkable levels. One question for arthurhenry: do you ever feel trapped when you're at a concert and are exposed to ugly harmonies that you can't escape? Does an eye shade help? Have you ever attended a John Mayer or Aphex Twin concert? John Mayer and Richard James are both synaesthetes apparently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul h Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 I can "taste" food. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Higgie Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 Synesthesia really intrigues me! I do have certain visual analogies but nothing in the realms of what you describe! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stingray5 Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 Briefly, I guess I'm more simplistic in that I'll see (or describe) chords and scales in varying shades of light and dark, typically in relation to major and minor chords/scales respectively with other variations somewhere in between. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthurhenry Posted February 18, 2010 Author Share Posted February 18, 2010 I don't actually see the colours when I play, or use them to understand music, though some might. It's just that the notes have an inherent colour, just like I know my car is blue, I know an E is yellow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Higgie Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 [quote name='arthurhenry' post='749711' date='Feb 18 2010, 02:15 PM']I don't actually see the colours when I play, or use them to understand music, though some might. It's just that the notes have an inherent colour, just like I know my car is blue, I know an E is yellow.[/quote] Either that or you've been playing too much Guitar Hero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodyratm Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 [quote name='BottomEndian' post='748316' date='Feb 17 2010, 12:35 PM']No, not me. I think that form of synaesthesia's quite rare, compared to things like letters or numbers (or days of the week) having colours. That said, I do get a sensation of different "tones" and "feelings" (bright, dark, happy, strident, etc.) from different chords and keys, which apparently not everyone has. In fact, I agree with Nigel Tufnel that D minor is the saddest of all keys. No, seriously. An A major chord's bright and open to me, whereas Eb major's kind of solemnly smug. D minor's really sad, but A minor's just wistful. Hard to describe, but really useful at times. Chord extensions give me different sensations too (and usually combined with the associated feeling for the base chord too): maj7 = light, open, floating min7 = dense, thick, dark sus = sparkling[/quote] Hahah i thought that was just me being stupid! Thats roughly the same thing ive said to mates about chords! and get this look back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodyratm Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 [quote name='Higgie' post='749718' date='Feb 18 2010, 02:19 PM']Either that or you've been playing too much Guitar Hero [/quote] I always thought that green was E Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tait Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 [quote name='phil.i.stein' post='748713' date='Feb 17 2010, 05:33 PM']you beat me to it. i'm trying to 'learn' perfect pitch at the moment. some people say it can't be done, others disagree. i have a friend with synaesthesia. he sees shapes when tasting. he makes wonderful beer.[/quote] normally i'd say i don't think it can be done, but this week i've been practicing with a blind keyboard player, and one thing i thought was really interesting was if you hit a note anywhere on his keyboard, he could hit the exact same note first attempt. also, when me and my guitar teacher randomly started jamming, he just joined in in the right key - we hadn't said what key we were playing in, he couldn't see where on the fretboard we were playing, he just knew. i think its really amazing how he can do that, i always thought being pitch perfect was impossible, but it's kind of made me wonder. even if it is possible, i think its unbelievably difficult and i don't think just anyone could do it, you'd have to have excellent ears and really really know the sounds well, like a blind person would. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BottomEndian Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 [quote name='Tait' post='749734' date='Feb 18 2010, 02:26 PM']i think its really amazing how he can do that, i always thought being pitch perfect was impossible, but it's kind of made me wonder. even if it is possible, i think its unbelievably difficult and i don't think just anyone could do it, you'd have to have excellent ears and really really know the sounds well, like a blind person would.[/quote] It's astonishingly common in populations with "tonal" languages. Just take a look at the tables of data in [url="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1377995/pdf/10441595.pdf"]the first article here[/url]. In the "conservatory" group, 18% of the non-Asian music students (and thus generally the ones using non-tonal languages) had absolute pitch (or "perfect pitch"). Pretty high, you might think. Then you notice that the "conservatory" music students from Asian backgrounds have an AP-prevalence of nearly 50%. Yes, they're highly trained musicians, so you'd expect a high rate of AP in both groups, but the cultural difference is pretty impressive. [url="http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1450"]This article from Language Log[/url]'s pretty interesting too, showing how pretty much everyone in the West misses the boat for developing AP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dumelow Posted February 18, 2010 Share Posted February 18, 2010 bum note = brown Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.gif.9ad672bb8b84505709f76b39c8c256ec.gif)
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.