Your music listening experience.

[Foxholes]

Am I the only person who associated colors with sounds? Electronic music is very blue to me, folk has a lot of earthy tones, and so on. This probably has to do with the images I bring up in my head when I'm truly listening to music. Sort of like mini-films to go with each song, I'm writing a script for a Kid A film (not really, it would be too abstract to shoot).

So how do you listen to music? What's going on in your head when you're devoting all of your attention to what you're listening to?

Boards of Canada is very blueish-green btw.

[Foxholes]

I thought this would be an interesting topic, guess not?

[theguy77]

you should go see a thrice concert. the lighting captures the effects of the alchemy index in this same way.

[x togepi x]

I thought this would be an interesting topic, guess not?

i think there's a select group of the population that associates music with colors, i can't remember the name of it but we talked about it in my philosophy of mind class.

[sandra92]

Hum ..
That thing of the colors works with me .. but just about genres of music , not with a specific music .. Like Metal - black , reggae - happy colours , classic music - brown , r&b - yellow , punk - black, red ..
Then .. With specific songs , I usually try to think of someone to dedicate that song to..
With some songs I sometimes imagine the videoclip for it . Ahah .

[El_Jeffe]

i do the same thing! i'm glad others do as well haha. for me, it's not a genre dependent thing, each song (even songs from the same band or album) brings wave upon wave of different colours that i associate with them. colours just flood in through my mind as i listen to any of my favourite tunes, not something i can help for whatever reason

[chaosB4storm]

Associating sounds with colours is an example of something called synesthesia which is actually not very rare in people.

[chaosB4storm]

I believe I have synesthesia, but I think music affects my emotions more than my imagination usually.

[wewascontenders]

I've only noticed that while listening to happier music I tend to associate it with yellows and oranges. Angrier music is generally red, black, and blue. Any hip-hop is green for the most part.

[thingschange]

For me, TBS's Where You Want To Be matches perfectly with the colours of the album cover.
its weird, but it fits.

[chipdip18]

Yeah i do the same sort of thing too actually. Reggae for me is a sea-blue and sometimes a rasta flag haha.

[thingschange]

Rasta Flag.
hahaha.

[chipdip18]

Haha well its true! It depends on the song actually.

[thingschange]

yeah, haha.
it does.

i think its just so weird how Where You Want To Be is so brown to me.
haha.
im probably alone on that one.

[SLoT]

I do this as well, but when I'm truly listening to music I love to analyze it part by part. I rewind it many times and listen to each part thoroughly. I try to picture what it was like when they recorded it and why they chose that sound. David Gilmour is a good example of someone I've done this with. Pink Floyd obviously is another one.

[suchaparadox]

oh man, thank you!
i love this topic already!
for me its the colour of the mood that the song presents.
for example, anything by the Format shows up as a bright pink [like the CD, which i found really coincodental] or a baby blue.
Weezer shows up as a dark green,
Chiodos is a pale green and a mud black,
because those are the different moods that those bands put me in. Weezer is full of memories for me, The Format were apart of the best two months of my life, and Chiodos helped me through a really hard time.

[thingschange]

When i listen to NFG's Sticks and Stones it reminds me of what went on during those times. same with Alls Well That Ends Well. big love for those two albums, they really helped me out.

when i listen to albums its not usually so much colours as it is pictures. its weird.
like ive been listening to the Forecast's Late Night Conversations non-stop for the past 2 days and i see starry skies. or highways. maybe cause they are on the album cover. but still.

[Foxholes]

Ok so does everyone see colors? We can go further than just that. Which instrument do you listen to the most? Do lyrics matter to you that much?

If I'm really paying attention I'll try to listen to one instrument the entire record, then the next instrument on another listen.

[Pluto.]

WHOA. Man, I thought I was alone!

[nerd_drummer]

Reel Big Fish talk about the colors thing on their dvd. I think A is red and D is green and C is yellow? Something along those lines. So if songs were in certain keys they would be certain colors.

[Gwytherspoon]

yeah sometimes it is cool to just pinpoint a certain instrument.. it kinda makes you appreciate the musicianship further.

[CellarGhosts]

i do the same thing! i'm glad others do as well haha. for me, it's not a genre dependent thing, each song (even songs from the same band or album) brings wave upon wave of different colours that i associate with them. colours just flood in through my mind as i listen to any of my favourite tunes, not something i can help for whatever reason
I think I do it too.

like, when I listen to Split Enz, I see red.

okay, that was a lame joke.

[thingschange]

Ok so does everyone see colors? We can go further than just that. Which instrument do you listen to the most? Do lyrics matter to you that much?

If I'm really paying attention I'll try to listen to one instrument the entire record, then the next instrument on another listen.

im digging this thread.

well as a guitar player i listen to the guitar a lot.
but sweet drums make me stoked.
i really really love the drumming in Mayday Parade's You Be The Anchor... it makes me happy.
and same with Jamie All Over.

There is a sick guitar part in Misery Signals' Anchor that just blows my mind.

[Praetor]

I do sometimes. More often than colors, though, I think of these really abstract pictures in my mind with about a tenth of the songs I listen to. It's the same one each time (for example the picture I see for "Asleep In The Chapel" is the same whenever I listen to that song) but sometimes songs that are on the same album share the same picture, and it only happens for about a hundred of the songs I listen to.

[Machu505]

I associate letters and numbers with certain colors. :shrug:

[thingschange]

i know these people that can smell colours.
apparently to them purple and green is the strongest.

[nerd_drummer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

[thingschange]

intense.

[KatieKutthroat.]

I think I do it too.

like, when I listen to Split Enz, I see red.

okay, that was a lame joke.

Hahaha, there are like, four people on this website who would understand that joke.

[HangsLikeHeaven]

Frenzy?

[thingschange]

hmm...

[Foxholes]

Here's a documentary on synaesthesia (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4297264301326388608 &hl=en) for those interested.

[CellarGhosts]

Hahaha, there are like, four people on this website who would understand that joke.
haha. let's count 'em:

Craig, Courtney, you, (maybe Garrett?) and me.

[KatieKutthroat.]

haha. let's count 'em:

Craig, Courtney, you, (maybe Garrett?) and me.

Five. I was close.

[CellarGhosts]

Five. I was close.
Haha. I'm sure there's probably more that we're just not aware of. Maybe.

[micahistheballs]

I always associate the colour blue with this song....

mL2UsAbI1hg

[SockMonkeyRiot]

Associating colors with different bands/genres of music isn't necessarily synesthesia

[sandra92]

Ok so does everyone see colors? We can go further than just that. Which instrument do you listen to the most? Do lyrics matter to you that much?

If I'm really paying attention I'll try to listen to one instrument the entire record, then the next instrument on another listen.

I usually pay more attention to the guitar and the drums . and I do the same as you but with just one song .. On the first listening I listen to the guitar and on the other to the drums ..
And the lyrics are very important to me ..

[thingschange]

im a lyrics person too.

first listening i will get everything as a whole.
then ill break it down into guitar, drums.