UNIX epoch + 1235679297 (09-02-26)

[jast]

DRC: so I had planned to post my reviews for "we keep them alive" two days ago. My excuse is that a) I spent most of the time starting Monday evening feeling like goo and generally not managing to summon any kind of concentration, and b) I spent the remaining time coughing my lungs out. There are still a few pieces of lung left so I guess I'll keep at it.

QotD: what does music feel like to you? Let me give an answer of my own to show what I mean by that. The fundamenal idea here is that perception is an extremely subjective thing. Since no one hangs out in anyone else's head, probably none of us could make full sense of the way perceivable things are processed and evaluated by any given person.
For example, I know that different musical keys feel different to me. When I write a song I'm more likely to set it to D major than E major, for example, for no logical reason at all (and there have been other songs for which E major felt "better"). In the same way the base key in songs I listen to tends to influence the way I perceive the song.
Can you think of any indications you might be processing music in your head in interesting ways?

[Lord of Oats]

Well, the key thing has come up for me before, but perhaps differently. During the writing process, I know that choosing the key will have a lot of impact on the song, but it's impossible to have the foresight to know what the difference will be in finished products. So it's crucial, but I have no idea how to approach it.

But the main time this comes up is if I do somebody else's song. Then I'll have trouble with the vocal part or something and somebody will be all, "Well, you should change the key so you can sing it," to which I inadvertently react, "CHANGE THE KEY?! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?! THAT'S JUST PLAIN DISRESPECTFUL TO THE COMPOSER! FUCK YOU!"

[jast]

PS. my voice feels pretty much the same with the cold (and coughing) as it did before. So I guess the only logical conclusion is that I'm entirely healthy right now...
... damn this.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Well, I can't read German, so I don't comprende' what you said. You lost me after "QotD: what does music feel like to you?"
But to me, it feels like warm apple pie right after I just got done............ummm, never mind.

....Mmmmm, apple pie..

[fluffy]

Music is an intangible orange which smells like the sea breeze. It is an exquisite vapor, ripe with potential.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Music is an intangible orange which smells like the sea breeze

Sounds like a covert naval operation. *budump bump, crash*

[Märk]

qotd: it depends on whether it's good music or bad music. and by 'bad music', I mean nickelback.

[roymond]

"Music is the best"

But I don't know how to describe the feel of it. Other than...the best.

[Teplin]

My brain processes music in a very visual way. Most music makes me at least see colors and patterns. My favorite music feels like a gateway to another dimension.

[fluffy]

Really? Sounds like you may have synesthesia.

[Teplin]

Really? Sounds like you may have synesthesia.

Possibly. Mine is a bit different than described on the wiki. I don't experience a certain color with a certain key, and I don't "see" them (like you "see" a hallucination). Rather, the song as a whole puts an image of a sort of... landscape... of different colors and shapes in my mind.

I definitely have this, though:

Ordinal-linguistic personification (OLP, or personification for short) is a form of synesthesia in which ordered sequences, such as ordinal numbers, days, months and letters are associated with personalities.

The numbers 0-9 have distinct personalities.

[fluffy]

There is no such thing as having synesthesia that's "exactly like" how it's described. It's a miswiring of the brain and is at its core likely to be somewhat unique for every particular case.

Also, I think the "one color per key" thing is one of those overgeneralizations, as is "one color per letter" or whatever. I've seen artwork by synesthates showing how they perceive the colors of words and while the individual letters do affect it, often the word as a whole changes significantly by context and a few other things.

The textbook descriptions also make it sound like color-grapheme synesthesia is like having the colors "overlaid" over the field of vision, whereas descriptions I've read by actual synesthates are, again, rather different, and that it's that the words or letters or numbers or sounds or whatever have an inherent color, not that they actually see it there.

Here is an example.

[jast]

It's a miswiring of the brain

You probably didn't mean it like "bad" anyway, but I think different is much more accurate than mis. The human brain does enough weird things in its "normal" wiring anyway...

[fluffy]

Well, yeah, like I said in my "Night Terrors," the brain is running like clockwork in a mechanical Turk (the joke being that a mechanical Turk has no clockwork in it, and it's all a bunch of fakery which happens to produce a compelling effect).

I just meant it's a miswiring (compared to the generally-accepted-as-normal wiring) which is the root cause for a lot of similar effects. It certainly doesn't have a negative connotation to me. I've always felt vaguely jealous of people with it, and synesthesia and synesthesia-like things seem to keep on coming up in my comics.

[jast]

I've heard about techniques to induce synesthesia in people who don't normally have it. Once I figure out the details I'll offer it to Songfighters for a reduced fee.

[fluffy]

Certain drugs such as LSD can cause it.

Also I have had brief periods of it while under extreme stress. That seems to be when I write my best music.

[Teplin]

The textbook descriptions also make it sound like color-grapheme synesthesia is like having the colors "overlaid" over the field of vision, whereas descriptions I've read by actual synesthates are, again, rather different, and that it's that the words or letters or numbers or sounds or whatever have an inherent color, not that they actually see it there.

Ah, ok, the "overlay" effect is exactly what had me confused. Your description sounds a lot closer to what I have.

No disrespect taken from "miswired". I'm miswired in lots of fun ways .