How do you "see" music?

[DrumUltimA]

I have an overactive imagination, so often I invent scenes and situations for the music I'm listening to. I also get reminded of colors, based on tonality, instrumentation, and recording quality. "Time Will Tell" performed by art blakey and the jazz messengers is a pretty strong blue to me, while "Siberian Khatru" by Yes is in a spectrum of yellows and reds.

[Chiwalker]

I see music in waves - which is why I like FL studio and Audacity (zoomed in really far) to watch the waves go without thinking about it

[Palpable]

Yeah, for me music/sound is completely unrelated to any kind of visual properties, aside from a lack of them. When I'm performing with a group in a session or solo on stage, I've had the experience several times in my life where I just kind of "black out." My vision fades completely to black, I lose awareness of my surroundings and just play the music on autopilot, without thinking at all. It's like I'm not even there in that physical place. These are usually the times when I play at my best. I've also experienced a similar effect practicing martial arts once. In zen practice it's called the state of "no mind" and I've heard other musicians talking about it. Has anyone here experienced this?

My girlfriend and I performed a song for the OCR Panel at AnimeUSA last year and I have almost no memory of playing the song, even right after I finished it. I think I was super-focused while playing to the point of not being aware of anything else, and so I wasn't concentrating on remembering it. Even if it's not the same thing, it seems like a similar result.

I know when I was first creating music I used to associate keys with colors; a major key song I wrote would be yellow, another one would be light blue, while minor keys would be darker blues and purples. I don't really see things that way anymore. I still get visuals when I listen to music but they're much more concrete, like imaginary music videos or movie footage that fit the style.

[po!]

Am I alone in saying that I really don't see music as anything? mean, best thing I'll see is frequencies stacked from lo to high (like, a bass and a kick on the bottom while everything else is built on top).

yea, i "see" music that way too. but that's just the way it sounds to my ear spatially, not really how my brain "sees" the music

in a more general sense, i "see" music as MOVEMENT. chord progressions really PROGRESS.. they go somewhere and then come back. melodic lines go up, down, out, back in... it's like a roller coaster ride

[Foxhull]

I see music as a super-stacked redhead.

<3

Hey, I resemble that remark.

[GenericDerrick]

I visualize the music into actual surroundings. There are places which could be completely real somewhere on the planet and others that only exist inside my mind. The place is always based off of what feeling the song provokes.

I get taken somewhere different every time I listen to a song. They all have their own place/world I instantly arrive in as soon as my ears hear it. This is what makes music so amazing for me to listen to because I can just zone out and imagine myself in another world and unwind. Sometimes they even have a visualizer effect like in Windows Media Player.

It's like going on vacation without actually going anywhere.

[OverCoat]

this is how I see music:

that is how I see music both in the real world and in my head. I see a bunch of note names and hex values. Also, I play along to the song with my hands. If you've ever met me, you may have noticed this: if I hear music I start fingering along with it on my lap as if sort of nonchalantly playing the piano. That's how I "get into the music" or whatever. Not sure if others do this or not though, I've never noticed.

[GenericDerrick]

Also, I play along to the song with my hands. If you've ever met me, you may have noticed this: if I hear music I start fingering along with it on my lap as if sort of nonchalantly playing the piano. That's how I "get into the music" or whatever. Not sure if others do this or not though, I've never noticed.

I actually do this a lot..I play piano so it happens quite frequently without me even noticing. I also tap the ground with my feet too. I do it so much at work that my co-workers are like, "What the hell are you doing?" and when I explain it to them they kind of understand and laugh.

I'll be sitting at home doing it with my eyes closed and when I open them one of my family members is usually there laughing their ass off.

I sing with my music a lot too since I used to be in chorus.

[Jaybell]

Man, sometimes I would fall asleep with my mp3 player on or music in the background and have messed up dreams. Often these are one of two types of dreams:

1) Your average, run of the mill dream, that is bizarre and unrelated to the music: however, I can still hear the music in my dream. This leads to some really weird juxtapositions. Example: When I was younger, I fell asleep in the back of the car whilst my mother was listening to The Music Man's soundtrack. I had a dream involving a public execution. (With a capital E and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!)

2) I have a short dream, it's relatively unusual, but then I hear music and realize "wait a second, this is a dream." At which point the dream ends, and goes to a completely new dream. So basically a series of short, unrelated dreams.

Unfortunately the dreams aren't too related to the music in the background, but still, it's weird.

[kitty]

There are certain songs that give me shivers and goosebumps, usually songs that have a lot of meaning to me. Some songs I create a scene like others have stated.

In particular, djpretzel's Pachelbel's Ganon gives me a clear image of a man walking through rain to go to a small venue to admire a female singer. The man tears up near the end and leaves before the singer has time to finish her song. This kinda stuff is atypical when I listen to music though.