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Comment by Le_SDT | Hacker News Reader

I think I may have some sort of this when it comes to music. I can't really concentrate when listening to music. I get so much into it, I can imagine a whole universe, like everything in the mix must have its visual space. When I compose/mix, I try to give everything its visual spot in the scene... it's weird. I can't tell how most people enjoy music so I don't know if this is """synesthesia""" or something else or whatever ... I just wanted to share how I enjoy/compose music !

EDIT: Also I always associate a track with a color. The vibe of the track has a color. The melody adds something to it. Music can get visual artwork to me.

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Me too, listening to music invokes this for me. I see music. Not like musical notation on a staff. I see each component of a song progressing through space, melody as a line moving up and down, bass as the ground, percussion as punctuated puffs of air or smoke. The climax of a song is like a bird bursting up through layers of cloud into a clear sky. It's like my brain is permanently on a Winamp visualization. (Edit: dear ghod, someone else in this thread used that exact same metaphor. Freaky.)

That's about the only area of synesthesia for me, though. I don't have any crossover between taste and smell and other senses like the folks described in this article.

On my side it is just colors bursting out just like the winamp hehe. But sometimes, when I do very heavy/intense parts in my music, I try to imagine how well it would fit a firework final hahaha, sounds and special effects must be well placed, I don't know how to describe it better :) and I can imagine the positionning of everything related to the fireworks or colors, depending how I feel at the time I guess haha

I don't always associate a track with color. But when I relax and close my eyes with headphones on, my mind does involuntarily paint a whole universe of colors and shapes inspired by the music. Well, Vivaldi's four seasons paints distinctly worldly scenes. But Beethoven paints very abstract things.

And I love music, but hate to have it playing if I'm trying to concentrate on anything else.

But I never thought myself synesthetic. Just plain introverted. So now I wonder if this type of "over-stimulation", or increased sensitivity, is somewhat shared between all introverts and people with synesthesia?

I have something similar. Not so much the colors...but I get a definite sense of being in different kind of "spaces" depending on the music. Hard to describe as there's no real visual aspect to it, but I might feel like I'm in a small tight room with lots of fabrics in it for one song, and under a huge concrete dome for another. I have certain "rooms" that I look for when I search for music I like.

I also frisson to music, sometimes very hard, it feels like raw lightening is being pumped through me.

Same about the frisson part :) When the melody is well done and unpredictable on first listen... this can become a drug, the need to find new music to get this feeling

>I also frisson to music

I think this is pretty common. I mean, there's even a term for it, "give the chills"[1] - eg. "Listening to this track gave me the chills".

[1] http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/give%20the%...

It's fairly common in certain groups. I can't find the paper on it, but I think in the general populace it runs around 30% of the population.

My wife and none of her family for example, absolutely do not frisson. While my father and I do in my family, but none of my adopted siblings do. My mother may or may not, but she tends to fall into "religious experiences" through a variety of stimuli and it's hard to get her to succinctly describe the feeling.

I had never heard the word 'frisson' before, and I had no idea that some people didn't do it to music. Happens to me all the time. Interesting.

I don't know if it is an English word but it's part of the French language as "to have a chill" or I don't know the correct expression/word in English :)

In English it has a similar, but slightly different meaning.

Here's some more info on it

http://www.cogsci.msu.edu/DSS/2008-2009/Huron/HuronFrisson.p...

I'm like this too. Different styles of music take me to different places. I never liked 90s rock because it always took me to the same place: it looked like the yard of some neighbors I had who didn't know the meaning of "cleaning", whose lawn was piled with junk and whose pool had developed its own ecosystem.

The first time I booted up Rez I thought to myself: "whoa, this looks just like trance music."

Sounds like it. I used to have quite vague ideas of colours and shapes when hearing sounds but years of listening to music gave it more structure. Though I do also get it with days, a little bit with hours in the day and months in the year... though that's another story :)

I remember people asking me if I took drugs when creating music since I make psychedelic trance overall hahaha. I never took drugs but it's funny how I enjoy music in a similar way to people who take psychedelic drugs. Mine is more analytical but in the end we all see shapes and color. :P

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