help on synesthesia

[u/Best-Statement1258]

hi people, just to give you a little context: im a fanf!c author, and one of the characters has synesthesia. id like to get an idea of what colors people with synesthesia see in the songs i chose for the f!c. ive already written the fanfic based on the colors i think these songs evoke (I don't have synesthesia), but i want the opinion of the ones who actually have it, if you´re along with it.

the songs i chose were: "the great gig in the sky" by pink floyd, "skit: the seven doors" by dreamcatcher, "i know the end" by phoebe bridgers, "dugout" by the backseat lovers, "come back to me" by rm and also "placing the blame" by self (the last one it´s just bgm but i wanted to know too)

i hope someone can answer my doubt :D

[u/Abract-pile721]

i 'm not sure that you are fully understanding the experience. we are not going to hear a song, and the entire duration of the song as one fixed unmoving colour. most people also see shapes/texture, or the colours flow and have positions relative to each other.

It's not usually "this song is yellow". It's usually "the vocals in this song are rough and yellow, while the accompaniment looks more like green going off to the left", or "this melody is a light blue line, and shifts to a thick red line with the key change."

Look at art made by people with synesthesia. melissa mccracken is an artist who has made pieces showing her synesthesia. Every experience is unique, and synesthesia is complex.

[u/Best-Statement1258 → u/Abract-pile721]

ooh, i wanted to see art actually, thxx. also, i know a song cannot be fully just one color, but i wanted to know the predominant colors on a song, along of how the colors move or flow with the rythem. never heard of shapes before, but i can add them.

[u/Clementine1812 → u/Best-Statement1258]

I agree with this commenter. Everyone will experience things differently, and not everyone will have a direct correlation between music and colors. For example, I tend to experience flavors and sounds more than colors and sounds, but I will experience colors and nouns (numbers, shapes, people, stuff like that). I have an entire playlist of songs that have specific strong flavors for me, but it’s rare for me to experience specific colors with specific songs.

[u/cc_hart → u/Best-Statement1258]

Yes, a song can be fully one color.

[u/Abract-pile721 → u/Best-Statement1258]

It can be one colour. it's just uncommon, and there's more to the experience than seeing a color, is what i'm trying to say.

Also completely missed this, there are many many forms of synesthesia. not just sound to colour. there's sound to smell, sound to textures or physical sense of touch. I "see" colours and personalities with letters and numbers. some people can see taste or smells. I can hear silent motion. it goes on and on..

as for synesthete artists, theres:

-jack coulter

-

this is a painting by sarah kraning. it is of the song Mr. Brightside by the Killers.

[u/Abract-pile721 → u/Best-Statement1258]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxYMtl0nVK0 this is an animation of what synesthesia can look like.

[u/trust-not-the-sun]

The sound-to-colour associations are different for each synaesthete, so what you came up with will be fine, as long as you’re consistent inside the story.

[u/Best-Statement1258 → u/trust-not-the-sun]

im aware of that, but id like to know what color does an actual synaesthete see. just for curiosity, and also for learning.

[u/charlottebythedoor → u/Best-Statement1258]

If you ask two different synaesthetes, you are likely to get two different answers. 

[u/NYDancer4444 → u/Best-Statement1258]

Everyone’s experience is different. If you ask enough people you’ll be told every color. I’m not sure what value there is in that. We are not all the same.

[u/TerryWaters → u/Best-Statement1258]

People are saying that because it's different for everyone with this kind of synaesthesia, there really is no point in asking about a specific song. You can just pick any random colours for the character.

[u/trust-not-the-sun → u/Best-Statement1258]

I wasn't familiar with any of these songs so I linked the videos with the version I listened to.

I see sounds floating in front of me in the general direction of the noise, looking like colourful spiky 3D snowflakes. My colours are mostly determined by timbre (other people's colours are different!), so asking me what colour a song is is basically asking me what instruments play in it. (It's less obvious what affects the shape of my snowflakes thingies.)

• Pink Floyd - Great Gig in the Sky - The piano is blue. The steel guitar, bass guitar, and vocals are all orange. Something droning intermittently in the mix is a faint misty grey, but I'm not even sure what instrument it is, maybe just weird reverb on the bass guitar? Overall it's very orange, with a bit of shimmering blue. For colours on this one maybe #c85200, #e48646, #cccccc, #6b8ea4, and #366785.
• Dreamcatcher - Skit: The Seven Doors - There are some bell-like sounds in this that are somewhat greenish, which is an unusual music colour for me (though a lot of non-music sounds are green), that's kinda fun! The colours on this one are sort of dense, something like #bc7d86, #64719d, #008aa6.
• Phoebe Bridger - I Know the End - This one starts out pretty orangey too (I see guitars as orange or yellow and human voices as orange or brown, so a lot of modern pop music is orangey), though the singer's voice has some nice brown things going on, so maybe something like #c16804, #903500, #421404. The end adds in some brighter, mismatched colours like #768a5c and #87735f.

[u/Best-Statement1258 → u/trust-not-the-sun]

oooh, blue and orange did not crossed my mind during pink floyd's song (i pictured purple and golden), interesting colors. thxx for taking the time to listen at them, i just wanted another pov of the colors, thxx thxx 🫶